Retailers Pull Fairlife Dairy Products After Investigation Finds Horrific Calf Abuse 

A large number of retailers have removed Fairlife products as a result of an undercover investigation at Indiana-based Fair Oaks Farms—a dairy producer for the Fairlife Corporation which is distributed by The Coca-Cola Company. Retailers that no longer sell Fairlife products include Tony’s Fresh Market, Family Express, and Jewel-Osco—the largest grocery chain in Chicago. On Tuesday, animal-rights organization Animal Recovery Mission (ARM) released the first portion of its undercover investigation, a four-minute video that shows workers at Fair Oaks Farms—which previously billed itself as an ethical dairy farm—beating, choking, stabbing, and burning newborn calves, among other extreme instances of abuse and neglect. “At Jewel-Osco we strive to maintain high animal-welfare standards across all areas of our business, and work in partnership with our vendors to ensure those standards are upheld,” a spokesperson for Jewel-Osco told TODAY Food. Fair Oaks Farms Founder Mike McCloskey responded to the investigation with disbelief and revealed that four out of the five employees depicted in ARM’s video had been terminated, stating that future measures will be taken to ensure workers are properly trained. “The calf abuse is by far the worst baby abuse that we’ve ever seen undercover, in any investigation, anywhere in the world,” ARM founder Richard Couto said. “Nothing is worse than Fair Oaks Farms.” While Fair Oaks Farms initially claimed that the incident was limited in scope, Couto explained that the animal abuse was rampant across the entire dairy operation and supported his claim with today’s release of an hour-long video depicting further abuse by many employees and managers at Fair Oaks Farms.