Activists Drop Banner at Trader Joe’s-Sponsored Bay Event

Photo: Direct Action Everywhere

August 3, 2025, SAN JOSE, CA -- Two animal rights activists dropped a banner over the front row of the Paypal Park stadium during Saturday night's Bay FC soccer match to deliver a message to Bay FC's sponsor Trader Joe’s, which was spotlighted during the game. The banner read "Trader Joe's: Drop Perdue's Petaluma Poultry," referring to the Perdue subsidiary that supplies Trader Joe's "free-range" and "organic" chicken. The banner also displayed the website URL PerdueAbuse.com. The two women who held the banner are members of the Bay Area-based animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), which has been calling on Trader Joe's to cut ties with Perdue's Petaluma Poultry for years, citing evidence of animal cruelty and abnormally high rates of pathogens.

Over the past 7 years, DxE investigators have documented systemic animal abuse at Petaluma Poultry factory farms in Sonoma County and its slaughterhouse in Petaluma, CA. This includes evidence of birds who were scalded alive, birds suffering from infectious diseases that threaten public health, and injured birds who were unable to walk to access food or water. DxE says the findings demonstrate clear violations of California Penal Code Section 597, which prohibits subjecting an animal to “needless suffering” or inflicting “unnecessary cruelty upon the animal."

Sonoma County’s Animal Services Department referred a Petaluma Poultry factory farm as a suspect for animal cruelty, after examining birds from the farm and finding that they were emaciated, bruised, unable to walk, and had necrotic wounds so deep that muscle and bone were exposed. Law enforcement never filed charges and has taken no action to enforce animal cruelty laws violated by Petaluma Poultry.

Over recent months, hundreds of people have emailed, called, and delivered physical letters to Trader Joe's headquarters detailing the issues at Petaluma Poultry and urging the retailer to cut ties. DxE activists have also protested at dozens of Trader Joe's stores across the country.

Instead of listening to these concerns, Trader Joe's filed a lawsuit against Direct Action Everywhere, seeking a court order to stop these protests. DxE says that despite the lawsuit, concerned community members will continue asking Trader Joe's to do the right thing and cut ties with Petaluma Poultry.

DxE animal cruelty investigator Zoe Rosenberg is currently facing a felony prosecution in Santa Rosa, CA for rescuing four suffering birds from the Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse in June 2023. Her trial starts September 15th.