The Five Freedoms Ignored:
Metro Germany
Cruelty exposed
This photo is representative of the standard industrial farming practices permitted in the company’s supply chain.Photo: Stefano Belacchi / Animal Welfare Observatory / We Animals
But Still Chooses to Look Away.
Benjamin Weiss is the CFO of METRO Germany, one of the most influential names in the German food industry. With that power comes responsibility — not just to shareholders, but to the living beings who suffer every single day to keep METRO Germany’s supply chain running.
And Benjamin Weiss knows.
Knows that animals in METRO Germany’s supply chain are sourced sourced from farms where animals endure unimaginable suffering — all so the company can shave a few cents off the cost of a meal. Knows that the same cruel systems deemed unacceptable in many parts of the world are still being used where oversight is weakest and voices are easiest to ignore. Knows that many competitors have moved forward, leaving METRO Germany behind, clinging to practices the public no longer tolerates.
While METRO Germany claims to care about animal welfare, its silence and inaction tell a different story. The Five Freedoms — the basic standards that every animal should be guaranteed — are still denied to millions of animals in METRO Germany’s supply chain.
What Benjamin Weiss decides matters.
A single executive decision could end some of the worst suffering in industrial farming — suffering that’s been documented, condemned, and condemned again. But instead of action, we get empty statements. Instead of change, we get delay. Instead of leadership, we get complicity.
This isn’t about perfection.
It’s about decency.
And decency is a choice.
It’s time for Benjamin Weiss to make the right one.
Fish and crustaceans in METRO Germany’s supply chain can face a brutal existence.
At factory farm seafood facilities allowed in the company’s supply chain, animals can be packed into overcrowded, filthy waters where fish’s bodies can become riddled with deformities and open sores from sea lice and other irritants.
Disease is allowed to run rampant, with a large percentage of animals suffering to death from disease before even making it to slaughter.
METRO Germany has the power and responsibility to stop permitting these extreme cruelties in its supply chain. The public expects better, and animals deserve to live free from this egregious and unnecessary suffering.
It’s time for METRO Germany to do what many other leading food companies have already done and put policies in place that ensure the Five Freedoms for animals in its supply chain.
