Inside D.C.

Food Companies should be more like circuses

Meat processing companies, grocery store chains and restaurants – whether white table cloth or fast food – take note of the recent one-two punch dealt the animal rights movement by non-ag companies with the backbone to stand up to intimidation and corporate blackmail. I’m talking about the vindication of – and $15.75 million payment to – Feld Entertainment, along with Groupon’s message to PETA to pound salt if it thought the company would cease offering zoo and circus deals just because the radical animal rights group told it to.

I make no secret of my frustration with food companies – producers, processors and retailers – who succumb to PR fears and attempt to give radical activists “something to make them go away.” This is cowardice in the marketplace and works against our collective industry’s best interests. Firms who partner with activists as protection from threats or to grow their niche market are either naïve or stupid.

The $15.75-million judgment levied by a federal court last week requires the Humane Society of the U.S., it’s “affiliate” group the Fund for Animals and 10 other animal rights groups to pay Feld Entertainment’s legal costs in a 14-year legal battle over allegations Feld, parent company of Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus, routinely mistreated the Asian elephants in its shows. The court called the allegations “vexatious,” “frivolous” and “groundless.” This is the second payment awarded to Feld. In 2012, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) settled for $9.3-million.

Groupon, based in Chicago, was targeted by PETA in one of its “we-buy-your-stock-you-have-to-listen” gambits. However, PETA missed the deadline for stock ownership in order to attend the company’s May 20 shareholders meeting. PETA wanted the company to drop affiliations with certain circuses and zoos. Groupon refused to knuckle under when the world’s most radical animal rights group insisted it adopt a biased policy as to which events and attractions it offers its customers. Groupon said it doesn’t make business decisions based on politics or activist pressure, but rather upon what its customers want. The company’s actions were praised by the National Center for Public Policy Research, which counseled the firm to adopt a politically neutral policy, one that made business sense for the company and offered shareholders value.

HSUS’s Wayne Pacelle, in classic loser spin mode, told the May 17 International Business Tribune, “the wind is at our back on this issue,” and the multimillion-dollar settlement deal isn’t “anything more than a small bump in the road in the public-relations fight over the systemic mistreatment of animals.” He said he “expects” insurance will pay HSUS’s share so none of the $180 million he took in last year from unwitting donors is sent to Feld. Pacelle was generous enough to suggest Feld use the settlement money to protect elephants killed for ivory. Feld spends millions each year to support its Center for Elephant Conservation in Florida, as well as the Elephant Transit Home in Sri Lanka, a group which takes abandoned calves and injured elephants, rehabs them and releases them in the wild. I’d like to know how much HSUS spends on elephant protection or rehabilitation.

The key to these victories is that these companies demonstrated corporate courage, not fear. I’ve spoken to a buddy at Feld, and the company has never lost a ticket sale at any of its various family entertainment venues it can attribute to an animal rights protest or nasty things said by any activist group. Talk to the food retailers who’ve been targeted by activists such as HSUS and PETA, some hit with international campaigns. None is out of business, in fact all are doing better than they were a decade ago. You’ll find out none have lost a penny because Pacelle or Ingrid Newkirk don’t like what they sell.

The Groupon attitude is exemplary: Give your customers what THEY want, not what some activist group with the price of a stock share or the cost of a USAToday full-page ad demands.   In the case of animal agriculture, our customers want meat, milk and eggs. Your first and foremost responsibility is to give consumers the best possible products from the best treated animals at the best price.

My advice to corporate execs who must “manage” these issues is this: Study the victories of Ringling Bros. and Groupon and learn from them. The first time you tell an activist “no, thanks” will be the toughest. After that it gets easier; kind of like a day at the circus.