Henpecking Costco
Gosling tries breaking firm’s egg supplier
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: To hang out with Ryan Gosling. Domestic fowl everywhere have a new hero in Canadian actor Ryan Gosling.
Gosling has written a letter to the CEO of Costco to protest the mistreatment of chickens at one of the company’s major egg suppliers south of the border.
According to a recent video taken on the sly by someone from the Humane Society, Costco U.S. gets eggs to sell to consumers from suppliers who think nothing of keeping chickens caged up in terrible conditions.
The Humane Society video shows chickens living in filthy cages; crowded and disgusting, the battery cages are such that the birds are prevented from moving freely. If you’re thinking this must be an American thing, the Canadian Coalition for Farm Animals says that better than 90% of our hens live in battery cages.
Gosling has written an open letter to Costco CEO Craig Jelinek that begins:
“I am writing today about the recent undercover investigation conducted by my friends at The Humane Society of the United States at a Costco egg supplier.”
The actor continues, “Video footage revealed abhorrent cruelty including rows upon rows of birds confined in filth-laden cages with the mummified corpses of their cage-mates — eating, sleeping, defecating, and laying eggs on top of dead birds — and hens’ wings, legs, and necks trapped in the corroded wires of their battery cages.”
Yergggh. Having ensured none of us will ever eat eggs for lunch in this town again, Gosling objects to packaging that shows happy hens in green pastures and reminds Costco that corporations are falling all over themselves to meet “public demand for more humane products and transparency in the food chain.”
It should be said that when the egg story first broke earlier in June, Costco sent its own inspectors to visit the supplier and reported that the egg farm in question was a good, clean facility operating up to standard.
In the past, Gosling has spoken up for other animal rights but as a new parent he will no doubt be personally relieved to see Costco move to selling eggs from cage-free hens.
The actor probably doesn’t shop against his conscience, which means that until Costco mends its egg ways, Gosling will be paying full retail price for disposable diapers, baby wipes, baby shampoo and body lotion, not to mention baby books, toys, strollers, closely followed by the bicycles, jungle gyms, school supplies, lunch box snacks, colouring books, Barbie palaces and other paraphernalia that baby Esmeralda and every other child seem to require.
And the boss of Costco might want to get the egg thing sorted, pronto, if only to convince Costco shoppers that they might one day encounter Ryan Gosling in the wide, bright, food-sampling aisles. It could happen.