Carl Icahn is broadening a push to get McDonald’s to improve suppliers’ treatment of pigs raised for bacon and sausage.
The billionaire activist investor, who has described himself as an animal lover, on March 3 called on the burger chain to make a global pledge to eliminate the use of gestation crates to house pregnant pigs. He has said the enclosures are “obscene” and cause pigs unnecessary pain.
McDonald’s last month said it would remove gestation crates from its U.S. supply chain by 2024, pushing back a 10-year goal it set in 2012 with Icahn’s urging.
Pork producers use the crates, which are about seven feet (2.1 m) long and two feet wide, to confine mother pigs with no room to turn around.
Icahn said he also wants McDonald’s to commit to buying pork from suppliers that abide by standards set in a California animal welfare law, Proposition 12. Approved by California voters in November 2018, the measure prohibits confining a breeding pig with less than 24 square feet of usable floor space.
