(Photo by Justin Maxon for The Atlantic)
When we released our investigative report Dairy Deception: Corruption and Consumer Fraud at Alexandre Family Farm (Alexandre), and The Atlantic published their own article, we knew that Alexandre would have to respond.
We hoped that Alexandre might acknowledge the harms they’ve caused and make immediate structural changes to address their ongoing animal welfare issues. Instead, Alexandre has continued to deflect and deceive. And despite having been tipped off that the report was coming, new video evidence suggests they continued to mistreat cows.
First the Alexandres tried to undermine the credibility of Annie Lowrey, the journalist who wrote about our investigation in The Atlantic, characterizing her a “self-described radical vegan.” This smear seems to intentionally confuse her public comments critiquing radical vegans with her self-description of being “vegan, if an imperfect and non-strident one.” Along with getting basic facts wrong, the smear fails to address that Lowrey is a prolific journalist with a strong track record of economic and political reporting. Even if you believe the Alexandres’ smear that Lowrey is biased (and we don’t), the Alexandres still haven’t responded to the hard evidence—photographs, videos, affidavits, and whistleblower testimony, all of which point to systemic animal suffering. What does Lowrey’s diet have to do with photos of calves who were left to die isolated in dirty hutches? What does it have to do with the Alexandres gluing a patch over the eye of a cow with eye cancer so they can hide the illness and send her to auction? The answer is nothing.
The Alexandres point to the fact that they offer farm tours to claim that our allegations must be untrue. They fail to mention that they give tours of only one of their five farms, and don’t give people access to the entire farm. They also fail to mention that only one of their farms is certified regenerative, the smallest show farm holds approximately 220 cows, while their other operations average five times as many.
How do tours of a small show farm disprove the dozens of specific incidents and conditions uncovered in our report? What does giving farm tours have to do with the photo of a cow being dragged on concrete by a skid loader, or the evidence that Alexandre cut off the horns of 800 cows with a Sawzall and no pain management, or any of the dozens of other claims we make about Alexandre’s abuse, neglect, and mistreatment of animals? Again, the answer is nothing.
Immediately upon finding out that Farm Forward planned to publish a report with allegations of abuse, Alexandre had their law firm send us an intimidating letter. So why then didn’t they instruct their law firm to send us a “cease and desist” to stop us from speaking about them? Or even sue us for defamation? Why have they still not, when more than a month has passed since we published the report? Simple—their lawyers have likely told them that to win a defamation case they have to prove that Farm Forward’s allegations are untrue.
Our report contained dozens of images and dozens of allegations of Alexander’s animal abuse and neglect. Tellingly, Alexandre has not publicly stated that any specific image or allegation in our report is staged, doctored, forged, false, untrue or inaccurate. Not one.
When Blake Alexandre was presented with evidence of animal abuse he explained to Annie Lowrey that “stuff happens.” It is dismaying to report that “stuff” at Alexandre—mistreatment that the Alexandres try to downplay or deflect—has continued.
Alexandre’s abuses and deceptions have continued well into 2024, with no sign of abating. Even as we were writing the report, whistleblowers continued to video and photograph Alexandre cows in dismal conditions. These new videos and photographs show cows suffering from many of the same types of welfare issues that our report documents in detail going as far back as 2017. The videos show cows continue to suffer with maladies like:
~ The following photos and videos contain material that audiences may find distressful. Viewer discretion is advised ~
At this point it should be clear that Alexandre has no intention of changing. They seem to see nothing wrong with cutting the horns off animals, leaving lame animals to suffer alone in a field, and instead of adequately treating or euthanizing sick and injured animals, sending the suffering creatures to auction and making a few more bucks. The question that remains is how will other companies, certifiers, and advocates respond to their abuse and corruption? We’ve already seen Certified Humane delist and Regenerative Organic Certified suspend Alexandre from their programs. Companies like Whole Foods and Alec’s Ice Cream have removed their marketing about Alexandre and at least one leading retailer, Providore Fine Foods, has cut ties with the business. Time will tell how other retailers and food businesses will respond, but at this point, companies doing business with Alexandres are putting their reputation and credibility on the line.
