The sandwich, which makes an off and on appearance on  McDonald’s menu, the McRib, is in for trouble again and it has got McDonald’s into action. After the "Humane Society of the United States" (HSUS) threatened that it is going to file a lawsuit against the main supplier of pork to McDonald’s Smithfield Farms, on account of the 'inhuman' treatment of pigs on its farms, the fast food chain has sent out an appeal to its suppliers to address concerns raised for the animal welfare. The Society has alleged that the pigs are being reared on Smithfield farms under conditions that are worse than the Vietnam Prisoners of War camps.

1) Fast Food Giant’s Wake-Up Call

The McDonald’s Corp. said recently that the small pens, called gestation stalls, are “not a suitable production system” for the sows. It also said that there are better alternatives to deal with the welfare of sows. The Humane Society has praised the company’s decision to come out into the open and push its pork suppliers to take note of the distress caused to the animals.

2) The Gestation Stalls or POW Camps?

According to media reports, the gestation stalls are used to keep adult female hogs and these are pens about two feet wide, as a result of which the sows are not able to move around. They can just stand up or sit down. The animal rights activists are taking this as an unethical treatment of animals, who, in any case, are eventually going to be slaughtered.

3) The Other Side

While McDonald’s said in its public statement that it had been vying for removal of the gestation stalls for quite some time, its leading pork supplier, Smithfield Foods Inc., said that it has in place a 10-year plan to move all its sows “into group housing systems.” Another hog producer, Cargill Inc. is also working to replace the cages in which sows are presently confined. However, not everybody is in support of what the animal rights activists are demanding. The National Pork Producers Council said that though it was ready to cooperate with the McDonald’s suppliers in this transition, the Council does not oppose the use of gestation stalls. As per the Agriculture Department, out of a total population of 65.9 million in the country, about 5.8 million are breeding sows.

4) The McDonald’s Woes 

This is not the first time that the fast food giant has found himself in trouble because of its products or practices. The company has, from time to time, made changes in its menu, bringing in salads, smoothies, and oatmeal as healthier alternatives to its regular fare of burger and shakes. In the past, activists have taken McDonald’s to task over the use of its brand ambassador, Ronald McDonald, to lure kids to fast food and its happy meal toys . More recently, it also drew a snub  from the British Royalty when Prince Charles, during an overseas tour, indicated that the fast food chain should be banned to protect the children’s health. In 2000, when PETA raised its voice, the fast food company had to force its egg suppliers to stop “forced molting,” a cruel method in which hens, close to the end of their egg-producing stage, are kept hungry so that they lay more eggs out of distress. The same year, the egg suppliers to McDonald’s were also forced to increase the size of their cages so that the hens could lay eggs more comfortably.