Sweet Stem Farm’s website includes photos of cute piglets and depicts bucolic scenes with fluffy sheep in green fields. The owners reference their “unwavering commitment to the humane treatment of our animals” and refer to their products as “happy meat.”

The pigs observed by our eyewitness were never given the opportunity to touch the farm’s lush green grass. They spent almost all their time crammed into crowded sheds on concrete floors. Some of the pigs were allotted about 5 square feet of floor space each. The only time the pigs were ever outside was when they were trucked from one shed to another, put on a scale to be weighed, or sent to slaughter. Some pigs were kept in semi-darkness deep inside a barn.

Whole Foods claims that these pigs live in an “enriched environment,” which typically amounted to some straw strewn over the concrete flooring. Sometimes, 200 pigs were provided with a few chains or rubber hoses to play with, which Whole Foods–supported standards specifically list as “not … acceptable enrichments” because they are not “valuable/satisfying to the pigs,” as “extensive research” demonstrates. Whole Foods–supported standards call for “thermal comfort” for all pigs at all times, yet during hot weather, hundreds of pigs had access to just one water sprinkler.

As shown above, even where there are standards to help the animals, they’re commonly ignored, despite Whole Foods’ claim that “[b]efore we do any purchasing, we know exactly how the animal was raised, what it ate and where it came from.” The standards require that sick or injured pigs be promptly euthanized if necessary, but PETA’s eyewitness saw obviously sick and injured pigs’ condition worsen for days or even weeks. If a veterinarian did provide these animals with care, the observer never saw it, despite more than two months of working full-time at the farm.

One pig ran an intermittent fever for up to a month before finally being shot in the head and killed. Another pig whose apparent neurological ailments caused her to go lame was left for eight days until she, too, was shot. The observer documented seven pigs with grotesque rectal prolapses—as large as an orange and dripping with blood. The pigs were left with these often-painful conditions for up to 24 days.

The veterinarian who doled out medication—from his office—apparently never even saw those animals. But PETA’s observer saw countless pigs who had been given antibiotics loaded into trucks bound for a slaughterhouse that supplies Whole Foods, which boasts, “Our Meat: No Antibiotics, Ever.”

Sign our petition urging Whole Foods to stop duping consumers with dubious “humane meat” claims. Avoid all animal-derived foods, even so-called “humane,” “organic,” and “free-range” meat, eggs, and milk. As long as profit is involved, animal welfare always takes a back seat.