Taking Action To Address Animal Abuses At Fair Oaks Farms

(June 6, 2019)

Last week, we were devastated to see a video from Animal Recovery Mission (ARM) showing acts of animal cruelty at Fair Oaks Farms, one of the 30 suppliers to our partners at fairlife.

We care deeply about animal welfare, and these acts left all of us at Coca-Cola with heavy hearts. Any form of animal cruelty is unacceptable and against our values. That’s why we’re taking immediate action with our partners at fairlife to make this right.

fairlife immediately discontinued the use of milk from Fair Oaks Farms. No milk from any Fair Oaks Farms locations will be included in fairlife products.

In addition, The Coca-Cola Company is immediately conducting our own independent investigations of all fairlife’s dairy suppliers to ensure they uphold the highest standards of animal welfare. This is in addition to the audits by fairlife that will begin this week.

Here are more of the actions fairlife is immediately taking to protect animals at all its supplying farms:

• fairlife is visiting all 30 of its supplying farms in the next 30 days to confirm there are no systemic animal welfare issues. This will be completed by July 6, 2019. 
• fairlife is increasing the frequency of its random audits to 24 per year for each of its supplying farms, all of which will be unannounced.
• fairlife will require that all supplying farms’ employees are re-certified in animal welfare training on an annual basis.
• fairlife is demanding its supplying farms continue to enforce a zero-tolerance policy for animal abuse, which will result in termination of any employees caught abusing an animal and, as appropriate, investigation by law enforcement. In this case, the individuals who participated in these acts were terminated and anyone else associated with this issue will be held responsible for their actions.

At The Coca-Cola Company, we are also taking action to ensure that internationally recognized animal welfare standards are appropriately enforced through our Sustainable Agriculture Guiding Principles, our Supplier Guiding Principles and our auditing processes.

This is our top priority. We know people have high expectations of our conduct and products, and we can play an important role in improving animal welfare across the dairy industry.  

Read Coca-Cola North America President Jim Dinkins’ Message to Employees.