
Yesterday [18/01/25], supporters of Animal Rising held signs and handed out leaflets at Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury's supermarkets across England.
The supermarkets are major stockists of RSPCA Assured products across their meat, dairy and fish aisles. Placards and leaflets exposed the vast differences between the public advertising and hidden reality of the RSPCA Assured scheme.
Members of the public and shop workers were asked to sign a petition calling for the RSPCA Assured scheme to be dropped.
Notable supporters of this campaign include Chris Packham and George Monbiot, with the former leaving his role as President of the charity over their response to the scandal.[1][2][3]
M&S stores in Birmingham, Chelmsford, Stoke-on-Trent, Manchester, Nottingham, Eastbourne, Gloucester were among those attended by campaigners.
In a coordinated effort, campaigners from the climate and animal group Animal Rising attended supermarkets across the UK over the weekend. Some campaigners staged “sit-ins” inside Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury's stores while others distributed leaflets exposing cruelty on RSPCA Assured farms and slaughterhouses, encouraging people to sign a petition calling for the scheme to be dropped, which currently has around 15,000 signatures.[4] These activities have been triggered by extensive investigations by Animal Rising on over 40 Assured farms and slaughterhouses, compiled into comprehensive and expert-backed reports that expose factory farming and extensive animal suffering within the Assured scheme.[5][6]
Investigations on 37 farms revealed animal suffering and intensive practices on every single farm and resulted in the scheme being described as ‘effectively fraud’ by legal expert Ayesha Smart. Animal Rising is calling for the RSPCA to drop the scheme and throw their support behind a transition to a plant-based food system and helping farmers to produce food sustainably. Last year was the RSPCA’s 200th anniversary, with a rebrand that talked about standing up ‘for every kind’.[7] Making this important change will help remove unnecessary animal suffering from our food system whilst also creating space for rewilding and allowing nature in the UK to thrive again.
Rose Patterson, lead investigator at Animal Rising said:
“The Assured scheme has not only failed in its objective to protect farmed animals, but through its endorsement and advertising of a false idyllic farm setting, is actively causing more harm by persuading consumers that farming and saughter can be humane.
“Our investigations have shown that whether on the farm or at the slaughterhouse, cruelty is endemic within the Assured scheme. It’s time for the RSPCA to drop the Assured label for good, and instead lead the way to a kinder future for all animals.”
In 2018, comprehensive research from the University of Oxford showed that 76% of the land currently used for food production would be freed up by a global transition to plant-based production.[8] This land could be rewilded and begin carbon drawdown, mitigating the worst impacts of climate breakdown. A 2019 Harvard University report on UK farmland and food production from Helen Harwatt and Matthew N. Hayek also concluded that the UK would be carbon-negative if it completely transitioned to a plant-based food system.[9]
Animal Rising is a social movement to create a new relationship with all beings and give us a chance for a safe ecological future. The group primarily calls for the transition to a secure and sustainable plant-based food system, alongside a mass rewilding programme.
ENDS
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