Coop Supplier D’Artagnan Represents Foie Gras Producer
Two Coop vendors recently went head-to-head in a lawsuit over the meaning of the word "humane." For members who want to know more about the meat they buy, here is the story. In 2003 Coop members voted to stop buying foie gras, which consists of the diseased livers of ducks and geese who were force-fed through long, hard pipes to swell their livers eight or more times their normal size. Before 2003 we bout foie gras from vendor D'Artagnan, which sold foie gras made by Hudson Valley Foie Gras (HVFG). The Coop still sells meat from chickens, pigs, lambs, rabbits, cows, turkeys, wild boars, and ducks from D’Artagnan HVFG has been calling its foie gras humane, which stuck in the craw of another Coop provider, Regal Vegan, which makes Faux Gras. Regal Vegan made an unfair competition claim, arguing that by calling its product humane, Hudson Valley was stealing business from Regal Vegan’s Faux Gras -- which is free of animal products and so indisputably the more humane of