Abstract

Henry's opening move was a low-key meeting with McDonald's General Counsel and Executive Vice-President, Donald Horwitz, held in February 1989 at the offices of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The purpose of the meeting was to ask McDonald's to investigate the effect of factory farming on the animals whose meat and eggs they used, and then to use these findings to develop less stressful ways of raising these animals. Horwitz seemed remarkably ready to cooperate. He agreed that Mcdonald's would survey its suppliers in the United States and Canada, and take a look at the situation in Europe, where there was legislation setting minimum standards for farm animals that was in advance of anything in the United States. The research would, he said, be a guide to further action