Raw Milk Revelations and Undercover Investigations with Ben Williamson

uh, which is the, that time of month, not that time of month, but the time of month where you are bringing in a, a special guest and inviting our flock to, to be here, to ask questions and watch it live.

So if this is of interest to you and you're a Flock member, we hope to see you at a future one. And if this is of interest to you and you are not a Flock member, then check out all of the things we have to offer over at ourhenhouse.org/support. We are a nonprofit and we really appreciate those of you who are able to support us in all of the ways, including the ones that in that involve sharing the message about Our Hen House because we've been doing this for 16 years now and it's really fascinating to me how much the movement is changing and growing and I wanna make sure that we're able to continue to capture people who care about changing the world for animals to listen to our program and to be guests on it. Mariann, why am I talking so much?

Mariann Sullivan: I have no idea.

Jasmin Singer: I think I'm nervous.

Mariann Sullivan: Like move on.

Jasmin Singer: I'm moving on. I'm moving on. Alright, so, uh, thank you again for those of you who are here, but especially to our guest today, who is Ben Williamson. And I just wanna tell you about Ben a little bit and then we'll welcome him to the show. Ben is the Executive Director of Animal Outlook and has previously worked with PETA, World Animal Protection, and Compassion in World Farming USA. And he's here to not only catch us up in general about what's happening at Animal Outlook, which is an organization we really love, but also to tell us about an investigation that they recently did that blew the lid off of RFK Jr's favorite beverage, which is raw milk. Oh my God. Gross. I'm so excited to welcome to Our Hen House Ben Williamson.

Welcome to Our Hen House, Ben.

Ben Williamson: Thank you so much, Jasmin. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so grateful to speak to you, I've been a fan for a long time, and to, to see all of your flock, really great to see all these faces and I can't wait to answer your questions.

Jasmin Singer: Well, I can't wait for you to answer their questions, but before that, I can't wait for you to answer ours. So, uh, let's just, let's just jump right in. I, I have to say I never knew that there was a such thing as raw milk being sold until pretty recently, and I still don't know that much about it. But before we get into the details, can we start by having you tell us what raw milk is and what are the claims made about its health benefits?

Ben Williamson: Yeah, sure. So, so raw milk is, is, as it suggests, it's milk that hasn't been pasteurized. And pasteurizing is the process of, of heating and then cooling very quickly milk to remove some of the, the impurities. Um, and raw milk advocates claim that the pasteurization process removes some beneficial bacteria, which are healthy for the gut.

And so, soccer stars like Erling Harland, and you mentioned RFK Junior, um, have advocated for, for raw milk as boosting their health. Um, we didn't look so much at the health of humans in our investigation. As, as an animal rights organization, we're primarily concerned about the health of, of cows. And, you know, what we found was that cows for, for raw milk and it, it's, it's worth noting that these places were also selling, uh, milk to, uh, co-ops, which are pasteurizing the milk and selling them in stores, uh, and as, as non raw milk.

Um, these cows suffer the same, uh, as, uh, as as any cows on industrial dairies, um, who, who aren't selling raw milk. So yeah, raw milk, we wanted to investigate it 'cause obviously it's trending. It's, um, it's obviously been in the news. The MAHA movement has, has been behind it. Um, and we wanted to really see from an animal's perspective what, what all the craze was about and what, what impact it would be having on animals.

Mariann Sullivan: And we really wanna focus obviously on what's going on with the animals too. And I know this is, this was a, this was a really interesting investigation, which happened not too far from where, where we live in upstate New York. But before we do that, I just wanna, 'cause, 'cause when I was in school, like young, we heard, we all learned about Louis Pasteur, and he was seen as one of the great heroes of science because he invented the pasteurization of milk, which, you know, at, at this point in my life, I don't really care about because, uh, well, uh, I obviously don't drink cow's milk. But before we move on to the... it, it just astounds me that this became a thing again.

'Cause can you talk a little bit about the history of what milk consumption was like before this discovery and why it was so monumental that they figured it out? I mean, it was killing people right?

Ben Williamson: I mean, it still is making people sick. You know, since we've been doing this investigation, I've had my, my news alerts set up. Every day I get hits for different outbreaks of, of, uh, sickness, hospitalizations from raw milk around the country. I mean, not many places allow raw milk to be sold. Because of the MAHA movement, there's a few bills going through different state legislatures to, um, to sell raw milk now. But in New York, certainly it's limited to just on farm sales. Um, but yeah, in most places you can't buy raw milk. And that's why we have to choose certain parts of the country to go and do the investigation.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, where who is currently producing raw milk?

Mariann Sullivan: Is it, is it all small farms? Is it just very local, small farms?

Ben Williamson: In New York where our investigation took place, it's restricted to on-farm sales. You can't buy it in grocery stores. It has to be close to the source. It has to be, um, yeah, it has to be there because the bacteria is so harmful, the health advocates say that you have to bottle it and drink it close, consume it, purchase close to the source.

Mariann Sullivan: That is just so gross. So, all right, let's get to the question, um, that you wanted to start out with and which is obviously what we're here to talk about. So, what are the conditions like for the animals on these farms? I mean, probably a lot of our listeners know a fair amount of what dairy farms are like, but these are specifically relatively small farms, maybe some people think it's better.

You know, keeping in mind that, that people kind of know a lot about dairy and we don't wanna like... We try to hit that sweet spot between giving the information but not making people turn off. 'cause they can't bear it. Uh, and they already know it.

Jasmin Singer: Yesterday when we were, when Moore and I were leaving the gym, someone was driving really, really fast and Moore was like, slow down dude. And then like one second later, someone was going so slow and she's like, can you pick it up? That's the sweet spot that we want you to hit, Ben.

As

Mariann Sullivan: Justin, what are you talking about today?

Ben Williamson: No pressure.

Jasmin Singer: I don't know, look at Ben's hair. Aren't you distracted by it? It's so good.

Ben Williamson: No, I, I understand. I've done enough breakfast television to, to know kind of what, what, what's gonna put people off their breakfast.

Mariann Sullivan: YeaH. Yeah. And you know, pe people listening probably know a fair amount of, much more about dairy than the average person, but still the more you find out, the more there is to find out about what's going on with these cows.

Ben Williamson: Yeah. I think, I think for us, the, the key thing about this investigation was, was all the, the six places that we went to were all, all branded themselves as family farms. None of these farms had over a hundred cows. And in fact about 60% of the US dairy comes from family farms, uh, more, more so than any other agriculture sector. Um, dairy relies on this kind of pastoral myth of the small family farms. You know, they sell their milk to large cos and then it gets packaged up. But I think the dairy industry really takes advantage of this family farm aspect. So we wanted to go and, and see what it was like. And we went to these six farms and invariably, as I say, all family farms, all small, under, under a hundred cows.

So I think the, the smallest had about a dozen cows and we found, um, pretty much living in filth. A lot of it was was filth. There was a lot of, um, a lot of fecal buildup, and maybe this is not hitting the sweet spot, but, um, a lot of that kind of thing. There were mutilations, the same mutilations that are practiced in industrial dairy, tail docking, castration, disbudding. Um, there were, uh, we found mastitis, um, in some of the cows, and we found, importantly we found mastitis in, in the cows...Uh, you're supposed to separate any milk from the cows infected with mastitis from the milk that you're, you're selling. Um, but we found that the milk was going into, uh, the, the same, um, channels as the milk that was prepared to be sold.

And so that, that gave us cause for concern. And we actually wrote to New York Department of Agriculture & Markets about that particular farm. That was, that was kind of the, one of the more concerning things. Um, and then two weeks later, two weeks after receiving our letter, there was actually an outbreak of campylobactor from that farm and they're now prevented from selling any raw milk.

So, you know, we, we, we knew that this farm is a risk and, um, and that they're still not able to sell, uh, raw milk because of the campylobacter that's still present, uh, this is two months later, in their, in their raw milk. The key point for us was just that there's the separation of mothers and calves.

The, the same things that we all know about happening in industrial dairy, were happening on these small family farms. And so that's really what we wanted to draw people's attention to is regardless of size and regardless of ancestry and the family who owns it, you can't... the and the control of the reproductive cycle through, uh, through hormones, through specifically filmed a farmer giving something called estrumate, which, uh, regulates the, the cow's, um, hormonal cycle. It's the same game plan that the family farms are operating under, they just have fewer cows. That's essentially what we found.

And family farms also, they, they come with their own problems. You know, they don't have a great deal of money. They don't have a great deal of labor. We found barns falling into disrepair, broken gates falling down. Um, we found cows living in kind of makeshift accommodations, like a converted uh, container, a shipping container that had kind of been hollowed out and cows were forced to live in there. And we also found not having the manpower to take the animals outdoors and, and have the proper husbandry that, you know, you might find on a farm with more resources. Um, and one of the really telling things we filmed in a conversation with a farmer who, um, said, you know, you can buy these, uh, better milking machines that fall off automatically when the, uh, when the cow's done producing, um, which is better 'cause otherwise the, the sucking motion keeps going and they, that's when they can get painful inflammation and, and it can harm their udders. But he said, we priced it and just can't afford it. And that's, that's, so that's kind of one thing that's unique to a family farm is they just don't have the resources to invest in the higher welfare equipment. Now, I'm not saying by any stretch of the imagination that industrial dairy is, is brilliant and is the answer. Um, but I'm saying family farms come with their own unique set of challenges. In the end of the day, if you want to be able to sell milk, if you want to be able to be competitive in that landscape, you're gonna have to play by the same, uh, playbook as all these mega dairies.

Jasmin Singer: You said that in New York marketing is limited to on-farm sales, is that right? And is that, is that different in other states?

Ben Williamson: Uh, I believe in some other states you can sell, uh, at a grocery. Um, but, but you know, it's not something that we looked into too much. There, there there's a myriad of rules and I think the thing that we were struck by was just how few states allow, uh, the sale of raw milk because of, you know, the inherent danger.

And as you say, Louis Pasteur kind of, um, you know, that that's been the, the benchmark for ages is pasteurization.

Mariann Sullivan: Let's talk about RFK Junior, because that's kind of the reason this all is happening, or he's certainly one of the reasons, uh, he's a fan, obviously. Uh, is the government, since he's taken over at at HHS, is the government doing anything to support the distribution of raw milk? Is that possibility becoming bigger?

Ben Williamson: No, I think to the, to the chagrin of raw milk advocates, it was left out of the dietary guidelines. Um, and he, he has been, since he's been in office, he's actually been very silent on raw milk. I think he, he advocated it a few years back, but, you know, it, it, it, didn't really make it into his, uh, HHS policies.

But what the new dietary guidelines, which I, I know you, you know, so well, um, what they do recommend is three servings of dairy a day, uh, which is just crazy. So, you know, I think milk, whether it's being pasteurized or not, uh, the milk is all coming from the same places. Um, and, and we do expect with those dietary guidelines for milk consumption to go up.

Jasmin Singer: Wow. I remember... uh, where did you grow up, Ben?

Ben Williamson: I was born in London and I spent the first 30 years of my life there.

Jasmin Singer: Did you grow up in the eighties?

Ben Williamson: Uh, yeah, some of them, half of them.

Jasmin Singer: I remember growing up in the eighties and it was just like, you know, you had to have your glass of milk with ...Milk, it does body good was, you know, the big

Mariann Sullivan: I don't think that was just the eighties.

I, I

Jasmin Singer: think, I make it the eighties

Mariann Sullivan: I grew up in the fifties and it was like you had

Jasmin Singer: was really big in the eighties though. I mean, I really do think so, but you know, you're right.

Maybe I'm looking at it from a 46-year-old

Mariann Sullivan: industry has just an unbelievable hold on, uh, public policy that is just extraordinary when you think of how destructive it is in so many ways.

Jasmin Singer: And, and destructive leads me to thinking about sanitation. Speaking of destructive, aside from the problems in consuming cows milk in general and the, the, how did you say, the campylobactor, am I saying that right? Uh, okay. That you mentioned. What, what else are the health issues for people consuming raw milk, both theoretically and maybe that have actually come to pass?

Ben Williamson: Yeah, I mean, e coli, salmonella, uh, are other, um, bacteria that, uh, that can be present. Um, but, but yeah, the pasteurization process is supposed to, to reduce that risk. And as I say, the, the health advocates suggest that, you know, killing the, the good bacteria as well as the bad bacteria that they say, uh, is what prevents, um, prevents us from being healthy.

But, you know, that, that science is, is not really an area where we paid much attention to, but it's, it's definitely not, um, it's not a consensus, a scientific consensus that raw milk is either, is it has any benefit for you at all. In fact, the CDC something that we relied on in our, um, in our press release, uh, the CDC pre the, the current administration, so 2024, they were dead set against raw milk.

They talk about the dangers of raw milk, and they say that any bacteria in raw milk, um, only comes from poor hygiene and poor welfare of animals. Um, so the, the, the bacteria that raw milk advocates are, are claiming as good only comes because the animals are living in, in substandard conditions.

Mariann Sullivan: Wow, getting back to the dietary guidelines, which you had mentioned. Um, all right, so apparently the dietary guidelines are not favoring raw milk in any way, which is good. But there, there, there was that recently that bill, and I'd be curious to know your, your position on it. There was that bill that put whole milk back in schools, because even when milk has been pasteurized, it's not exactly a health food.

But at the same time, it also made it easier, not totally easy, but easier for kids to get plant-based milk. So do you, I've heard different people take different positions on this, like whether, whether this is huge, a huge step forward or whether there are just too many obstacles in the way of that plant-based milk still. Uh, I'm just curious to know your take. Is, this, is, do you think this is a, a, a big step forward?

Ben Williamson: I, I think, um, certainly the passing of the, the, the FISCAL act, I think it was called, the kind of the food independence, um, which allowed for plant-based milk being available to students. You know, previously you had to have a doctor's note. Um, you had to get a special dispensation to, to be able to have a plant-based milk at school.

And, and thank goodness now you, you won't. So it will be available to... and, you know, people with lactose intolerance and people whose, whose religious beliefs prevent them from, from drinking milk, um, you know, that was a big cause of concern for the animal protection movement for, for many years. And it was really great that that part has passed.

But no, I mean, sometimes with, with good also comes bad and the, the promotion of, of dairy now, um, by this government, um, and by the fiscal act as well, uh, you know, it's probably going to offset any, any ability for us to, to phase out dairy through increased consumption of plant-based milk. It's one of those things that over the past 10 or 15 years, you know, has actually increased and has stuck.

We've seen plant-based milks now, um, everything from soy and oat and different creamers, um, a avail, widely available and widely consumed. I think I read something about, it's about 30% of the market now is, is, uh, dairy alternatives, which is awesome. But, um, you know, still a long way to go. And, uh, yeah, certainly this, um, the, the the current dietary guidelines don't do us any favors with, um, any kind of reduction in animal proteins.

Mariann Sullivan: I guess the fact that it's whole milk instead of skim milk is more bad for the kids than it is for the cows. It's the cows, it's the same, same amount of milk they're producing. But, uh, I, so I, that in and of itself, I guess wouldn't increase the amount of milk that's being, being drunk.

But, uh, as you say, the promotion, the, the enthusiasm about it and the promotion of it is, is what's really the problem.

Ben Williamson: Yeah, it seems to be fats which, uh, animal fats, which, which RFK juniors made a, made a, a meal of promoting. Um, but yeah, raw milk didn't make it onto the agenda, but, but the fats in animal proteins has, through whole milk and through, through meat has, um, has really been, uh, obvious and against the, the scientific consensus that have been recommending for years a reduction in animal proteins in the dietary guidelines.

And, yeah.

Jasmin Singer: Hmm. Yeah. I know we've told this story before, but like maybe in 2000, I'm gonna say 2009 ish, Mariann and I went to Disney World, and in order to get the dairy alternative ice cream from the ice cream vendor, we had to speak with the manager and tell them that we had an allergy. You just, we had, I, I was, I was a bit of an asshole about it, which, you know, the poor kid that was on the other end of that, I was like, I'm allergic to cruelty. Really bad

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, the manager was like 18, so.

Jasmin Singer: At, at most.

Well, okay, so, uh, you mentioned that all of these investigations are as, as Mariann said, near us in upstate New York. Without giving away any secrets about how undercover investigations work, can you give us an idea of how long the investigator was on the job and, and how they managed to look into six different farms, and of course, what they found?

Ben Williamson: Yeah. Um, I can tell you a little bit about, you know, we, we do stay very buttoned up about how we do investigations, even how long they last sometimes because we don't want people to kind of change the way they allow us to, to do our investigations. Um, but I can tell you we went to six, they were from, uh, Ulster County up to Jefferson County, so the kind of the whole right up to the border of Canada, down to the, uh, Hudson Valley. Um, they were, yeah, all family farms. Um, we got, we, we were able to shoot content at, at all of them. Um, and that's about as much as I can say about kind of how we, how we did it, how long it took. Yeah. It was, it was over, uh, the course of about, um, between October and November.

Mariann Sullivan: You mentioned you reported one of the farms to the, um, department of Agriculture and Markets regarding, um, that was the campylobacter, right?

Ben Williamson: Yeah. Country Cousins is the name of that farm. And yeah, we discovered two weeks later there was a, a news release that came out saying that they'd been banned from selling raw milk because of the campylobacter outbreak. Uh, but it keeps testing positive for, for kalo bacter two months later.

Mariann Sullivan: God, that's so disgusting. But, but what, were there other things that you could have re like, is that, was that the only thing that you felt like you could report that would make anything happen? I'm sure there was animal cruel, illegal animal cruelty going on in all of these farms. There's absolutely no doubt about it.

But, you know, things that I consider illegal animal cruelty, but, but probably not the local DA in, um, Ulster County. Uh, but were there any other things that you, that you found that you thought you was worth reporting to the authorities?

Ben Williamson: Un unfortunately, with this, uh, investigation, the standard animal practices that we all think are, are terribly cruel, uh, are perfectly legal.

Mariann Sullivan: No, they're not!

Ben Williamson: Okay.

Mariann Sullivan: I take a position on that.

Ben Williamson: Okay.

Jasmin Singer: uh,

Ben Williamson: We, we didn't, we didn't think that we would get any charges filed, um, for anything other

Mariann Sullivan: No, you, I, I totally agree. I, I totally agree you wouldn't have gotten charges. But I do always like to take the position that, uh, you know, the standard is, is, uh, are they, um, justifiable. In, in New York, that's the standard of what, and and I don't think they're justifiable and you know that, I think that's a

Ben Williamson: I'm with you there. Yeah.

Jasmin Singer: we just, I... can we just for one second dissect what's happening here? What, what just happened? So, so Mariann, what were you saying that you object to and why? I'm

Mariann Sullivan: No, I would

Jasmin Singer: really make sure we get this.

Mariann Sullivan: Every state has a cruelty law. New York says that, um, it basically, it's illegal to cause animals to suffer unjustifiably. Most states say unnecessarily. And this has been interpreted to, uh, to, you know, pretty much allow anything that is making anybody any money. That's the justification. That, that I, I, I assume, I mean, it's been interpreted by DAs.

It's never been prosecuted, so we don't know what a court would decide. We can guess. Um, so I like to take the position, and I think it's a legitimate position, that the law has just been wrongly interpreted. Um, and Ben is taking the position that, well, we have to look at actually the way the world works in real life.

Ben Williamson: No, I, I agree. I, I totally agree with you. Yeah. I, I probably misspoke. Perfectly legal is just my way of, my shorthand way of saying we're unlikely to get any kind of prosecution or

Jasmin Singer: Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Uh, so we're, we are all on the same page. I don't have

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. We're all on the same page. It's just, uh,

Jasmin Singer: Because I don't like conflict and I don't have a therapist,

Mariann Sullivan: I love cruelty laws. I mean, I think they're extraordinary. Uh, and you know, they're the same in many countries. They're the same in the UK and India, like they all... in Israel. Like, they all say this kind of basic principle that it's actually illegal to cause an animal to suffer unnecessarily.

I mean, which means that everything we're doing, every single thing we're doing to animals is illegal. But, but you know, the, because it's animals and, and, and, uh, and DAs and, and, and they just get interpreted in weird ways. But

Ben Williamson: So we interpreted, and, and

Mariann Sullivan: just extraordinary laws.

Ben Williamson: The discretion allowed from each prosecution also

varies from state to state and DA to DA, um, you know, we animal outlook. Part of what we see as our role is to help enforce these, the statutes that are on the, on the books. And you're right, there are a lot of laws that purport to help animals and they're just, the enforcement is not there.

So what we try to do with, with all of our investigations is obviously find the evidence, even getting, uh, prosecutors to rely on video evidence that we filmed. If they, that some of them claim, if they haven't seen it themselves, then it's not real. You know, it

doesn't happen. You could have faked this footage.

Jasmin Singer: I feel like I've heard that recently in the news

in other, in other ways as well.

Yeah,

but

Mariann Sullivan: When there's video of a crime being committed,

Jasmin Singer: Yeah,

exactly.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. Does sound familiar.

Jasmin Singer: I, I don't, I don't understand how we move forward when things like that happen. It, it's really mind boggling. But I digress.

You mentioned that you reported one of the farms to the State Department of Agriculture and Markets regarding the health and sanitation concerns with, with, the milk. So why was it only one of the farms?

Ben Williamson: Uh, that was the farm where we saw mastitis, uh, milk from a, a cow who'd been infected with mastitis going into the same, uh, milk tank that was going out for consumption. So we, we thought that that was particularly egregious and we thought that the, the authorities would taking interest in that.

Mariann Sullivan: So I, I know that Animal Outlook is really well known, uh, and, you know, punches way above its weight in undercover investigations, really extraordinary investigations. And I, I, I know you declined to, to talk in detail in any kind of detail about the specific investigation, but can you kind of give us an idea of what your priorities are in determining what to look into, like why you decided raw milk at this point, and what parts of the industry that you wanna, uh, you, you wanna cover?

Ben Williamson: Thank you that, that's such a great question to be able to answer. So, um, you know, I've been in Animal Outlook for, for 15 months. Um, as you say, I, I came from kind of different animal protection organizations. Um, I'm so happy to be here. I've, I've inherited a, a really amazing legacy in the, the EDs who came, come before me. Um, I've done investigations kind of with PETA and with, um, Compassionate in World Farming, but, but now to be, I think investigations is what Animal Outlook is probably best known for. They've done over 50 investigations. They're all available on our website, animaloutlook.org/investigations for anyone to go and see a whole myriad of topics, different species. Um, and it really covers the gamut over the last 30 years. Uh, we, we do more investigations than, than any other US investigations, than any other animal protection groups. We, last year we did five undercover investigations, um, and how we, we pick our subjects, I'm, I'm more than happy to talk as, as much as I can about that. You know, it's just, it's things that we think the public doesn't know enough about is one of the selection criteria. So raw milk was obviously a trending topic. We thought it would get some interest. Um, what haven't we investigated for a while, what's changed about an industry, um, is another thing we look at, um, where we think we're likely to get.

And then sometimes we get tips. We get tips from people saying, This place is pretty bad. Or we look up what violations they, they've received from the USDA and think, well, you know, we should go and get footage of that. Um, so. Yeah, there's a lot of things that go into selecting what we, we look at different parts of the country as well.

We want to, you know, take a, a kind of, um, a broad approach and don't just wanna focus on, on one or two states where we know we can do investigations quickly and easily. So there's, there's lots of things that go into it. Some of the investigations can take months. The investigator usually has to travel, be away from home.

They're, they're very taxing, you know, agricultural work is, is, uh, is one of the hardest jobs to do. And then you're not only doing that for 12 hour shifts or 17 hour shifts, you're then coming home and documenting and recording and uploading the footage that you're recording. So it's a really difficult, um, job to do.

I think our movement owes these undercover investigators a debt of gratitude. Um, that they have been, our, our own investigations team have a combined experience of, of 18 years. They're both former undercover investigators and on staff. And then we've got, um, investigators that we work with who are out in the field. And, um, just so much goes into them that from the equipment that's used, it's highly technical and, and complicated equipment, um, you know, it has to survive out in the field. Uh, and yeah, so much goes into choosing the topics that that, but that hopefully gives the kind of idea. Also policy. You know, we do look at where, where we think we're likely to get some change, some movement.

'Cause sometimes if we just do an investigation just to expose and, and hopefully inspire some change, um, it's, it's maybe not as strategic as something where we think we can move the needle with, with regulations or with legislation.

Um, so we look at that aspect as well.

Jasmin Singer: So how do you take care of your team? I mean, you're doing, you are doing this work. You're very well known for doing this work. I mean, you mentioned five investigations a year or so. How, how do you make sure that people can stay sane in an insane world?

Ben Williamson: We, we put a lot of, of thought and, and, um, time into, into the safety and, um, and health of our investigators. Um, you know, we, we give them a lot of resources. Um, we, everything, I think everything is legal checked. The, the thing about Animal Outlook and we do our investigation that, uh, everything is safeguarded and risk assessed because ultimately, we want to be able to use what we find in court. We need it to be, uh, acquired legally. Um, we don't want the investigators taking any unnecessary risks. Um, so we make a lot of effort to, to ensure that we've got their backs out in the field and they know that, um, and then that we take care of them when they're out of outta the field. Um, so yeah, I think it's a really tough business, but we take every precaution and, and step that we, we can, that's deemed necessary that we've, the experience that we've built up over many decades now of doing this, um, to make sure that we get the best possible result.

Jasmin Singer: A lot of times people ask me about how to get involved with investigations themselves, which I, you know, frequently just would point them to an organization like yours. But what would you say to people who would maybe feel like they could handle that? Because, you know, I, I think that frequently activism, animal activism in particular, but probably every kind is about what, what you can do. I mean, I Mariann and I know someone who, his activism of choice is that he walks dogs who are about to be put down at, at kill shelters, he walks the pit bulls for their final like moment of beauty, which I can't imagine, but he says, I can do it.

So. I can't imagine being an undercover investigator either. Thank God we have them. Like you said, we really owe them everything. What would you say to someone who wants to get involved in that?

Ben Williamson: No, that's a great question. I, I really do think we, we should all play to our strengths and, and, and do what, what is the best fit to help animals. Um, we have a evergreen advert up on our website for undercover investigators. We are always seeking new undercover investigators. The, the, the churn rate of undercover investigators because of what you're having to deal with, at an emotional level, at a, a labor level, uh, is such that we're always looking for more people to join. It happens to be quite an entry level job. You don't need a great deal of, of experience and knowledge. Um, so it is something that if you wanted to do, you could come and we could teach you how to do it. Um, so yeah, I would, if they do, if people do want to do it, obviously there's a, there's a incredibly tough training, um, schedule. You know, we wanna make sure that people can do this work, um, because to, to, to invest and put them out in the field, and then for them not to be able to do it, uh, we've gotta make sure that, that, you know, it's, that it's everyone's gonna be safe first and foremost, and that they're gonna be able to do the job.

So, yeah, a lot goes into it, but we're always interested in enthusiastic people, um, who, who want, you know, who are dedicated enough to be able to do it.

Mariann Sullivan: And the thought I wanted to add was that I just wanted to, to remind everyone that, um, Erin Wing, who's one of your, I think your senior people in investigations was on the podcast a while back. It was about a fish investigation, I think, and she was extremely inspiring. I just didn't wanna forget to mention that.

Ben Williamson: Erin is amazing. She's our Deputy Director of Investigation. She, she is a former undercover investigator, as you say, and, and now she actually does a lot of talking. She just, uh, she just did a TEDx and a Moth that we're gonna release soon, um, where she talks about her, her own. Yeah, she's, she's incredibly inspirational.

Uh, I think she got the, the longest round of applause that I saw at the Animals and Vegan Advocacy Conference last year. I counted it, lasted 23 seconds because her story is just so emotional, uh, and so inspiring. We're

Jasmin Singer: Love that she's doing The Moth. That's, um, what a perfect, what a perfect outlet for someone who's a great storyteller. I mean, to bring in the animals. I've never heard of any animal activist doing that as, as the medium. That's

Ben Williamson: Yeah, I mean, we try, we, you know, our, our job, we, as we see it, is to kind of bring the animal stories to the mainstream as much as possible. And so getting on NPR would be, would be amazing.

Jasmin Singer: That's

Mariann Sullivan: So are there any particular investigations that you can tell? I mean, obviously you can't tell us about anything ongoing, but aside from the raw milk investigation, are there any recent ones you'd like to, uh, to highlight?

Ben Williamson: This one comes back to like for people who want to do investigations and be advocates, uh, I'll tell you like a, a quite a simple story. Um, last year I, I kind of sat down with, with chat gpt on a night on Friday and said, you know, got, got some time today, what, what should I do? And within a few minutes I was investigating, I was looking at Yelp reviews for foie gras sales in California.

And obviously, you know, foie gras is banned in California. Um, and the same name kept popping up. It was Wild Fork Foods, and I'd never heard of this Wild Fork Foods, but, but several reviews for sale of foie gras at Wild Fork Foods in California. And I thought, this is, this is odd. I looked more into it. And, um, Wild Fork Foods is owned by JBS, the world's largest meat processing company, and so I went to, to my local Wild Fork Food store and, and saw that sure enough, foie gras was for sale. Not only that had the establishment number, the USDA meat inspection number, and we could trace it back to a farm in upstate New York called LaBelle Patrimoine, which is a well-known, um, supplier of foie gras from, from force fed birds. And sure enough, we sent our, our, our Director of Investigations out, Scott, the, the next Monday, and he filmed himself purchasing foie gras at 11 different stores in California, um, at Wild Fork Food Stores. So the world's largest meat company was breaking the law selling, selling foie gras. Um, and the, and, and sure enough, you know, we contacted the authorities.

We're hoping that the California Attorney General is gonna pursue charges, uh, in this case. Um, but, but the reason I tell this story is because that didn't take any degree of training or un, you know, much undercover footage. It was just somebody noticing something and, and, and pulling at a thread and saying, this isn't, this doesn't feel right. Um, so if anyone does want to be an investigator, sometimes all you have to do is take a bit of notice, read the packages in the meat store, um, and, and just do a little sniffing around and you'll find you could find something untoward just, just like that.

Jasmin Singer: Can we just talk about the Yelp review part of the story? Like what? That's bananas. You're just sitting there like on an app. Also the chat gpt part of the story. Like every part of the story is sort of blowing my mind a little bit. Uh, wow. I remember , like right at the very beginning of Our Hen House, we interviewed an undercover investigator and, uh, you know, I, this was like 2010 maybe.

And I obviously there had been investigations before then as well, though since then, they've really, you know, exploded. Uh, it wasn't like as common and, uh, and I remember one of the things he mentioned, and this is such a tiny piece of the interview, it's like nothing sauce, is that he had to eat meat in the lunch rooms and, and then like eventually he would start to like switch it to Tofurky or something.

But he didn't wanna do anything to, you know, stand out. And, uh, I, you know, he also said some other things that are so much more alarming than that about the treatment of the animals and like, what became considered normal even to him, even though he had the ethos of an animal rights activist. But for some reason it was like that piece of it that, you know, I always think of.

'Cause I think a lot of people who would want to get involved with undercover investigative work in this particular area would be like, you know, this would be for the greater good, I can do this, I can film this, I'm not scared, da da da da. And then it's like, oh, but you have to have a meat sandwich at lunch.

And they'd be like, I'm out. Uh, I don't actually have a question in that, Ben. I just, that story has always really struck with me, which stuck with me, which reminds me of the importance of using storytelling as your colleague is doing.

Ben Williamson: Yeah. And I think, you know, from, from the undercover investigators, how I've been told that they deal with it is to, to basically build a different persona. You know, you're not this, you're not yourself when you're in the field. You are, you are this person and you, you know, you eat meat and you, um, can stand by and watch people abusing animals. Um, and that's, that's kind of how you deal with it. But as I say, you know, some people, there was a question in the chat, which we might come to, but, you know, saying, how, how long can you, in theory you can be in the field for forever. You know, if you enjoy the nomadic lifestyle moving around, um, and you want to get a lot, there are some very seasoned investigators who have been doing it for, for 20 years. Um, but that's not, that's the minority of people. The majority of people last one or two investigations and then, and say, you know, thank you very much.

Jasmin Singer: I just was wondering how many of them are women at this point. 'Cause I know that it was pretty, um, it was very few, uh, back in, back in the day, but I think that's shifted. Am I right?

Ben Williamson: Uh, there are both, uh, male and female investigators. Yeah. Um, I, I think it's, uh, I wouldn't say it's an even split, but, but there's, you know, every, every walk of life can be an investigator. That's what, that's one of the things. Anyone could be an investigator. Um, you know, there's a certain mentality, uh, that kind of can stick it out. Um, but you don't have to have many prerequisites to be an undercover investigator, which is, which means the pool is really big. But you know, you do have to be very mentally strong.

Mariann Sullivan: Before we let you go, I wanted to get into the fact that, that in, in addition to being known widely for really outstanding undercover investigations, Animal Outlook is known for, um, legal advocacy. And, um, we are big fans and old friends of Piper Hoffman, um, who is your director of legal advocacy. So can you just tell us a little bit about your strategy, uh, just the same way I asked about which undercover investigations do you do?

What legal efforts, do you have a certain theme, do you have a certain goal in mind that you, that you wanna pursue? Because there's a whole lot of things you could do and they're all extremely time consuming, and I'm sure resource intensive, once you choose to go in a certain direction. Uh, so can you just tell us a little bit of, of your strategy and what's on the current docket?

Ben Williamson: Yeah, so, um, it's actually Piper's last day today. She's leaving

Mariann Sullivan: Oh, no.

Ben Williamson: uh, Animal Outlook and moving on to... staying within the animal protection movement, I'm delighted to say, and, and not going too far, but we'll miss her. She's been with, with Animal Outlook for five years. But this is in way of an advert. If, if this episode goes out before, um, before we've closed the, the recruitment fields, you know, we are recruiting for a new Senior Director of, of Legal Advocacy.

But I'm sure Piper and, and whoever steps into the position will say the same thing. You know, what they look for or what we look for in cases is what's going to move the needle, what's gonna be replicable, what's gonna be scalable? Because just going after, uh, individual workers for committing crimes against animals on, on factory farms it, it is just going to, it's not going to move the needle. We need to get replicable, uh, models of, um, of litigation that the private sector can pick up, um, and class action lawsuits, for example, where there's a monetary incentive for private legal firms to, to, to get involved in animal protection issues. Um, and also start holding companies account, you know, far too often it's the lowest workers down on, down in the, in the chain, um, who are the ones who, uh, take the brunt of the policies of the company. So what we look for is where we can hold the actual integrators and the companies accountable for the, the crimes that are committed on their watch. Um, so yeah, it's, it's scalable, it's replicable, um, and it's needle moving. You're right, there are, there are so many, many enforcement possibilities, but that's really what we look for when we decide whether or not to pick a case.

Mariann Sullivan: Anything in particular you'd like to highlight?

Ben Williamson: Yeah, I think one really interesting one that, that I was really grateful to work with Piper on at the end was a case against a Pennsylvania egg company called, uh, uh, Alderfer eggs. So Alderfer eggs, they were marketing, uh, as free roaming, the eggs were from free roaming birds. And so what we actually did in that case was we flew a drone over the walls of, of these various suppliers for Alderfer eggs, and found that, um, the majority of birds never went outside and they only had access to a wire porch, um, that was suspended kind of above the air. And, and very few birds were actually using the wire porch.

So then we took those photos and we surveyed, and this was all Piper, we surveyed the, um, the, the likely customers for Alderfer eggs in the northeast United States and showed them these photos and said, do you think these birds are free roaming? And overwhelmingly, I think it was something like 80%, they said, no, those birds aren't free roaming.

So we used all of that as the evidence base to, to then, uh, sue Alderfer egg for, for, um, false advertising. And we won a, a $280,000 settlement. And not only that, obviously, they had to remove the free roaming claims from, from the packages.

So that's an example of like, you know, great use of drone technology to, to get over those you know, we don't have to have glass walls anymore 'cause we can get above the walls. And great use of surveys and consumer focus groups to, um, to kind of understand whether consumers are being misled. And so that's a model that, you know, any company that's making humanely raised or free roaming, free range, we can now, um, use that in different parts of the country, different products, and um, and really go after a lot of those humane washing claims.

Mariann Sullivan: I love it. Like I can't believe that only 80, 80 something percent said they thought that was free roaming,

Ben Williamson: Yeah, I don't know the

other 20%...

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, so Ben, there's so much that we talked about, but so much we didn't. If people wanna learn more and support your efforts, get involved, how can they find out more and follow you online?

Ben Williamson: Yeah. Thank you so much. So animaloutlook.org, all of our information is there. All of those 50 plus investigations from our 30 year history are there. Um, and the investigations are only possible with the support of, of, of, of generous people. So thank you so much. They're so hard to fund. They're expensive tasks, and we really appreciate every, uh, contribution that's made.

So yeah, thank you. It's, it's so great to speak to you. I'm so grateful for, for your support, um, for the podcast support, and everybody who's listening.

Jasmin Singer: Thank you. We appreciate you and all that you're doing, and, and it's been really enlightening to learn more about everything going on there. And we hope you come back and tell us more about your, your forthcoming investigations and efforts. And, uh, for those of you listening, or here with us today, thank you for tuning in.

We're gonna get to a q and a in just a moment, so don't go anywhere. And if you're listening to this and you heard me say that the q and a will be the bonus material, uh, that comes out on Monday. So thank you all for tuning in. Don't forget to like and subscribe. You can also donate and become a flock member and join us for events like this at ourhenhouse.org/support. We'll talk to you next time.