Trader Joe’s is facing pressure to drop a North Bay chicken supplier after a social media post documenting its alleged abuses went viral with the help of celebrities and food influencers.
The video claims Perdue subsidiary Petaluma Poultry — whose products Trader Joe’s carries under its own label — criminally mistreats chickens prior to slaughter. The video was posted by animal rights activist Zoe Rosenberg and her Berkeley-based organization Direct Action Everywhere, or DxE.
Rosenberg is facing a five-year prison sentence for breaking into Petaluma Poultry in June 2023 and escaping with chickens she claims were being abused. For more than a year, she has been required to wear an ankle monitor that prohibits her from visiting a farm that produces meat, dairy, or eggs.
“A Trader Joe’s chicken company is trying to put me in prison,” Rosenberg says at the start of the video, “because they don’t want you to know what I’m about to tell you.”
While Rosenberg has fans of her acts of civil disobedience — which have included chaining herself to the basketball hoop during an NBA playoff game and running onto the field during the College Football National Championship — Sonoma County farmers regard her as something of a terrorist who threatens the local economy by spreading misinformation online via bully tactics.
Rosenberg and DxE members have a track record of breaking into farms to perform so-called rescues. Once inside, they gather photo and video evidence of what they say are criminal acts before escaping with mice, lambs, ducks, fish, or other animals.
DxE members who have alerted law enforcement and government agencies to conditions at such facilities have faced legal action, including jail time. In fact, it was when Rosenberg was bringing evidence of animal abuse to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office that she was put in handcuffs.
The Sonoma County district attorney’s office declined to comment on Rosenberg’s trial, which begins May 16. Perdue and Trader Joe’s did not respond to requests for comment.
‘Listen to Paris Hilton!’
Rosenberg uses footage she shot June 13, 2023, at Petaluma Poultry in the video calling out Trader Joe’s. The clips show chickens huddled together in a cramped space, unable to stand. Rosenberg holds one of the chickens, which appears to be deformed and scarred.
The video has been shared more than 45,000 times, with celebrities and influencers, including Paris Hilton and Amanda Cerny, backing the claims.
“This is so horrible and heartbreaking,” Hilton commented on the post. “@traderjoes please do the right thing and cut ties with #petalumapoultry and #perduefarms.”
Trader Joe’s Instagram account in recent days has been filled with comments such as “Listen to Paris Hilton!” and “Stop selling tortured chickens!” Some comments encourage customer boycotts.
The debate over animal cruelty was center stage in November, when Measure J, an initiative written in part by DxE that sought to end “factory farming” in Sonoma County, was put to voters. The measure, which would have forced at least a dozen major dairy, meat, and egg operations to either forfeit millions in revenue and livestock or shut down entirely, led to fraught debate among citizens and sizable campaign spending.
While locals weren’t convinced that the bigger farms in Sonoma County treat their animals as well as the smaller ones, they were wary of DxE’s explicit goal of banning animal farming altogether.
This consensus led to Measure J’s defeat by close to 200,000 votes.
TikTok beef
The local farming community aggressively campaigned against the measure. One tactic was to bring the fight to DxE’s battleground: TikTok.
Jennifer Beretta of Santa Rosa’s Beretta Dairy, a medium-size farm that was targeted by DxE in March, created a TikTok account to battle Rosenberg’s. While Beretta doesn’t respond directly to DxE’s posts, she seeks to paint a kinder narrative around the dairy’s farming practices and provide a glimpse into the traditional, charming aspects of farm life: feeding twin calves, watching sunsets from a tractor over wetlands, and rejoicing in the defeat of Measure J.
But in a phone call with The Standard, Beretta hit back at DxE.
“They’re just trying to cause businesses harm,” Beretta said. “They don’t want you to go in and shop at Trader Joe’s, and they don’t want the employees to go in there and work. But that’s their job, and in today’s world, we need all the jobs that we can get.”
Dayna Ghirardelli, executive director of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau trade association, said DxE is manipulative and will do whatever is needed to achieve its aims.
“Over the last many years, bullying has been something that school systems have been contending with and trying to eradicate to protect kids from harm and intimidation,” Ghirardelli said. “Yet, here’s Zoe and DxE using bullying tactics to mislead people.”
While the viral post is unlikely to turn Trader Joe’s into a meatless market right away, Rosenberg and DxE remain optimistic that the campaign is one more step on a journey to animal liberation.
“Whether or not Trader Joe’s continues to sell meat, hopefully, we can all come together and say, ‘Hey, it’s not OK to be working with this company,’” Rosenberg told The Standard.