Unsettling information about Costco‘s iconic $4.99 rotisserie chicken was just revealed in court: a lawsuit filed this week in Washington claims that the birds at the store’s chicken processing plant were mistreated, CBS reports.
The suit, which was filed on Monday, alleges that Costco partakes in “illegal neglect and abandonment” at their $450 million chicken processing plant in Nebraska, as well as in Iowa. The warehouse store is being accused of inhumane acts such as breeding the chickens so that they are too large to stand on their own. When bred this way, the birds eventually die from “hunger, injury and illness.” These practices are illegal in both states in which the store keeps birds for their rotisserie chickens.
Alene Anello, president of Legal Impact for Chickens and representative for the shareholders who filed this suit, says that while Costco was "once lauded as an innovative warehouse club," the store now "represents a grim existence of animals in Nebraska who are warehoused in inescapable misery." Anello went on to say that if Costco wants to regain their status as an industry leader, "executives must agree to follow both the law and general decency."
This isn't the first time the membership-based store has been under fire for their treatment of chickens. Last year, a New York Times essay revealed the "ugly secret" behind these Kirkland Signature rotisserie chickens, highlighting a video taken by Mercy for Animals which showed mistreated birds in a warehouse facility. However, it seems that despite the public backlash, the store hasn't changed yet their practices.
