On the 9th of April 2025, Animal Equality released the findings of a new investigation into a Kansas pig breeding facility connected to Ahold Delhaize, the parent company of major US supermarket chains including Stop & Shop, Giant, and Food Lion. According to Animal Equality, the exposé reveals harrowing scenes of cruelty, with pregnant pigs locked in metal gestation crates so small they could not turn around for nearly four months at a time.
Investigators said they documented a pattern of suffering: pigs with open wounds, dead piglets on faeces-covered floors, and animals displaying severe psychological distress; many pigs were seen chewing the air, biting the bars, or lying motionless and unresponsive; some were so large for the crates that they became stuck under the doors, screaming until workers intervened.
The footage also appears to show premature piglets dying within an hour of birth, their mothers unable to reach or comfort them due to the restrictive cages. Outside the facility, investigators filmed the decaying bodies of piglets discarded on the ground and in wheelbarrows. Animal Equality says that adult pigs also died prematurely; in one scene, a pig nudged the body of her dead companion, and in another, a wounded pig was shot in full view of others, who could not turn away.
The use of gestation crates has been widely condemned by experts as “one of the cruellest forms of confinement devised by humankind”, with some comparing the experience to spending months in an aeroplane seat. Despite this, around 3.5 million mother pigs in the US are still kept in such crates. Ahold Delhaize’s brands pledged nearly a decade ago to ban gestation crates from their supply chain, but have delayed action until 2028, and even then, the change will only apply to some products.
Sign the Pledge to Be Vegan for Life: https://drove.com/.2A4o
