Tyson Foods, the nation’s largest meat producer, sent a letter to its pork suppliers Wednesday announcing new animal care guidelines a month and a half after NBC News showed the company undercover videos of workers on one of its farm kicking pigs and slamming piglets into the ground. In the letter, he company requires that some farms stop using blunt force euthanasia to kill piglets and urging that all its suppliers keep sows in larger cages and install video cameras in sow farms. Though the letter encourages all suppliers to adopt a different form of euthanasia, its order to end blunt force euthanasia applies only to contract farms. All other guidelines in the letter are recommendations. Nathan Runkle, the head of Mercy For Animals, the animal rights group that shot the undercover video, applauded the company’s change in policy.
