Mounting Criticism of KFC for Producing Toxic Chicken & Inhumane Treatment of Poultry

>From New York Daily News
Feb. 15, 2005

Rap against KFC grows
Simmons rips slaughter

By BRIAN KATES
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Rap mogul Russell Simmons has added his multimillion-dollar voice to the
growing chorus of African-American leaders calling for blacks to shun
Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Simmons called slaughter practices used by KFC suppliers "grossly inhumane"
and told the Daily News he has filmed a commercial "showing some of the
very worst abuses chickens undergo" before landing on customers' plates.

He said he has talked with officials from Yum! Brands, KFC's parent
company, and warned he will release the spot and organize a boycott if the
company does not make "reasonable reforms within a reasonable time."

Simmons, chairman of Def Jam Records, said KFC is "very, very big" in the
black community. But he added, "When a company targets our community,
disrespects us as consumers and sells us products ridden with negative
energy and laced with toxins, that is our business."

There are about 250 KFC stores in the five boroughs.

Comedian and activist Dick Gregory and former NAACP President Kweisi Mfume
also have been highly critical of KFC.

Celebrities from Pamela Anderson to Paul McCartney have rallied to the
cause.

The movement is gaining steam as the fast-food industry is reeling from
threats of mad-cow disease and avian flu and the national obsession with
low-carb food. Nevertheless, Yum! Brands - also the parent of Long John
Silver's, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell - posted a 6% increase in profits last
year.

Simmons, a vegetarian, has promoted an animal abuse hotline for the ASPCA.
In making his case against KFC, he cited information from the radical
animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

PETA activists have demonstrated outside KFC suppliers with signs reading
"The Colonel's Secret Recipe: Live Scalding, Painful Debeaking, Crippled
Chickens."

Yum! Brands vice president Jonathan Blum said PETA has unfairly singled out
KFC.

"We buy our chickens as do other companies from the same trusted brands
like Tyson and Perdue," Blum said.

"We have an independent panel of outside experts who set our high
standards. They are the same standards that all our competitors use to
insure humane treatment of poultry."

The company uses about 16 suppliers with 52 facilities around the country.

PETA claims the 750 million chickens raised each year for KFC are "often
fully conscious when their throats are cut and when they are dumped into
tanks of scalding water to remove their feathers." The group also maintains
that arsenic used to kill intestinal parasites in chickens is harmful to
humans.

In September 2000, PETA backed off an 11-month campaign against McDonald's
after the company agreed to a number of reforms, including increasing
living space for chickens, meeting other standards of more-humane treatment
and halting purchases from suppliers that failed audits.

McDonald's also has agreed to study switching its chicken suppliers to
those practicing so-called "controlled-atmosphere killing." That involves
using a cocktail of nitrogen and argon mixed with carbon dioxide to ensure
that chickens are dead before their throats are cut.

Blum said Yum! performs "announced and unannounced audits" of its
suppliersand requires them to correct any deficiencies. He said "the jury
is still out" on whether controlled-atmosphere killing is more humane.