Second undercover investigation reveals widespread dairy cow abuse at Fair Oaks Farms and Coca Cola
Warning: the way the fairlife corporation and Coca Cola treat their dairy cows and baby calves will make you sick! As part of the largest undercover dairy investigation in history, Animal Recovery Mission (ARM) investigators have followed up on last week’s groundbreaking video with new evidence showing that the abuses of dairy cows and calves at Fair Oaks Farms are widespread and systematic. This is not the result of a few bad apples - this is company malpractice and a failure of the so called “rotary system”.
Learn more below, and at animalrecoverymission.org. Our investigators need your support to continue to expose the abusive and criminal activities hidden in the dairy industry.
Between February and April of 2019, an ARM Investigator was hired by Fair Oaks Farms in Fair Oaks, Indiana to milk cows on a rotary system. On a nearly daily basis, the investigator witnessed employees punching, kicking, and stabbing cows, sometimes hitting their udders with the milking claws or shoving them with metal tubes and broomsticks. When cows in the milking line would not cooperate, frustrated employees would bend and break the cows’ tail bones as punishment.
On a daily basis, cows with infected eyes, broken bleeding tails, infected udders and afterbirth placentas hanging out from their bodies were seen being forced on the rotary system. The investigator did not witness any of the cows at this Fair Oaks Farms Fairlife dairy receiving medical attention, but did witness multiple downer cows and many cows falling while on the rotary system from poor health, untreated injuries, inability to walk and overall weakness.
It’s important to note the entire milking carousel has surveillance cameras and actions are video recorded and overseen by management. Unfortunately, management did not step in to stop the abuse suffered by the dairy cows.
The investigator also reported that newborn calves, immediately separated from their mother and just hours after birth, were violently thrown into small sheds where they would be alone in temperatures falling below minus 35 degrees Fahrenheit. The ARM Investigator also witnessed calves dying from extreme freezing conditions with upper management’s knowledge. During this period hundreds of newborn calves died of starvation, dehydration, and hypothermia.
Last week's video on the treatment of the calves at Fair Oaks Farms sparked outrage worldwide and caused many retailers to reconsider their support of the fairlife brand. With global news coverage and more than 8 million views on the video from the first Fair Oaks investigation, many consumers are joining in protests a. To date, more than a dozen retailers have stopped carrying fairlife, including Jewel-Osco, Winn Dixie, and Sprouts.
ARM is calling on Coca-Cola to end its relationship with Fairlife Corporation. This second addition to the Fair Oaks Farm investigation shows that the issue with its dairies is systemic, and cannot be written off as a few bad employees.
