Video: Vegan campaigners protest outside Warwick company's headquarters over animal rights

A group of campaigners gathered outside a business in Warwick last week to protest against animal cruelty.

On February 23, 40 vegan campaigners demonstrated outside the headquarters of Pilgrims Pride Ltd at Warwick Technology Park.

The protest was led by Joey Carbstrong, social media influencer, filmmaker and vegan advocate who recently released his new film 'Pignorant', a feature-length film that includes footage from an abattoir owned by Pilgrim’s Pride.

His investigation at the Pilgrims Pride slaughterhouse, located just outside Manchester, was featured in The Guardian newspaper. It looedk into how pugs are killed by gassing.

Joey said: "The vast majority of the UK public is unaware that most pigs in the UK are killed using CO2 gas, we are here today to highlight and expose what companies like Pilgrim’s Pride are doing to tens of thousands of pigs every day in this country.

"Today’s protest like the film is about creating awareness and spark change, and I hope that the public will join us in our mission to demand justice for pigs.”

The film Pignorant is currently on Amazon Prime UK.

Pilgrims Pride Ltd have been contacted for comment regarding the protest but have yet to respond.

As well as facing protesters, Pilgrims Pride Ltd has also featured on a list of employers being named by government for failing to pay the minimum wage.

The list features 524 employers who were found to have failed to pay their workers nearly £16 million in a clear breach of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) law, leaving over 172,000 workers out of pocket.

The government list said Pilgrim’s Pride Ltd, which was previously Tulip Limited, failed to pay £597,299.65 to 2,698 workers.

Responding to being on the Government list, a spokesperson for Pilgrim’s UK said: “Following a review of historic payroll practices with HMRC, it was identified a proportion of colleagues were unintentionally underpaid according to national minimum wage guidance.

"As soon as this was identified, action was taken to quickly rectify the error to ensure all colleagues affected were repaid at the time.”