{"id":5319,"date":"2025-03-10T17:44:27","date_gmt":"2025-03-10T21:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/?p=5319"},"modified":"2025-03-10T17:44:29","modified_gmt":"2025-03-10T21:44:29","slug":"alexandre-class-action-filed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/news\/alexandre-class-action-filed\/","title":{"rendered":"Press Release: Farm Forward Investigation of Alexandre Family Farm\u2019s Humanewashing Leads to Class Action Suit"},"content":{"rendered":"\t<section class=\"normal_content bg-white padding-top-small padding-bottom-large\" style=\"\">\n\t\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"row center-md\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"col-md-7\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"content-styled\"><h3 style=\"text-align: left;\"><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Certified Humane\u00ae label also sued after Farm Forward\u2019s 2024 findings on inhumane conditions at Alexandre. <\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Furious consumers have filed a class action lawsuit against Alexandre Family Farm and the owners of the Certified Humane\u00ae label based on findings released last year in <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/publications\/dairy-deception-corruption-and-consumer-fraud\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Farm Forward investigation<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the farm\u2019s routine animal abuse and neglect and selling of diseased animals for human consumption. The class action lawsuit, filed by <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.richmanlawpolicy.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Richman Law &amp; Policy (RLP)<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, alleges that Alexandre dairy farm and Humane Farm Animal Care\u2014the entity behind the Certified Humane\u00ae label\u2014humanewashed the farm\u2019s practices, misleading consumers and falsely representing Alexandre products as \u201chumane,\u201d all while Alexandre engaged in shocking and systemic acts of animal cruelty.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The lawsuit relies on both Farm Forward\u2019s investigation and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/news\/breaking-class-action-lawsuit\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">new, previously unreleased evidence<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of cruel treatment to calves. The lawsuit describes how, despite the overwhelming evidence of abuse, Certified Humane allowed Alexandre Family Farm to market their products as \u201chumane.\u201d The suit details how the farm:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Poured salt into the eyes of hundreds of cows and glued denim patches to cows\u2019 eyes<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sawed off horns of more than 800 cows through tissue laced with nerves without any pain management<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Severed a cow\u2019s teat with an unsanitized pocketknife<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dragged a cow across concrete and gravel for 50 yards using a skid loader<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Failed to provide routine veterinary or hoof care management<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Transported of sick, injured, and lame cows to auction rather than euthanizing them<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These allegations underscore Farm Forward\u2019s investigation and report, which was <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/ideas\/archive\/2024\/04\/alexandre-farms-treatment-of-animals\/677980\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">originally featured in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Atlantic<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Full details on the lawsuit and additional findings can be found <a href=\"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Alexandre-Certified-Humane-class-action.pdf\">here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cConsumers are tired of paying more for a lie,\u201d said Farm Forward Executive Director Andrew deCoriolis. \u201cThis investigation unfortunately reveals that even a dairy that has been touted as one of the most ethical operations in the country cannot be trusted by consumers to treat its animals humanely. It reveals that there is virtually no way for Americans to know if they are consuming higher welfare dairy, no matter how much extra they pay. And it reveals that voluntary labels like Certified Humane are inadequate for protecting consumers or providing any sort of public accountability for these companies. The USDA needs to set and enforce meaningful standards for terms like \u2018humanely raised,\u2019 \u2018sustainably raised,\u2019 and \u2018antibiotic free.\u2019 Without regulation, consumers can just get conned.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;This lawsuit sends a clear message: consumers will hold companies accountable for making false promises about animal welfare. When a dairy widely considered the industry&#8217;s gold standard for ethics fails to meet basic welfare standards\u2014and their certifier fails to enforce them\u2014it exposes a broken system. Today, there&#8217;s simply no way to guarantee your dairy purchases support better treatment of animals, regardless of price or certification. The most ethical choice is to opt out of dairy from cows.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">###<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Farm Forward is a team of strategists, campaigners, and thought leaders guiding the movement to change the way our world eats and farms. Learn more at <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":5321,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,20,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animal-product-labeling","category-animal-welfare","category-humanewashing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}