Most people wouldn’t expect a vegetarian to feel at home in a steakhouse. But today even the meatiest menu offers meat-free options specifically for guests with different tastes. That’s as it should be: The guest is king, and part of the business is making sure that every guest feels at home.
But with the slight uptick in the number of people adopting meat-free diets, we’ve also seen an uptick in the die-hard activism of those who aren’t interested in tolerance or middle ground. They want every steakhouse and barbeque joint to serve only tofu — or go out of business.
Professional agitators have been pushing animal “liberation” for a few generations. But only recently have they consolidated political power effectively into one group: the Humane Society of the United States, or HSUS.
If you haven’t heard of HSUS, you should take note: It’s an animal rights group with a full-fledged anti-meat ideology wrapped in a mainstream PR campaign. Ignore this vegan behemoth at your own peril; HSUS rakes in over $100 million a year and has another $160 million in the bank. Most of that money pays a huge staff to harass businesses “from farm to fork.”
HSUS largely operates in statehouses — it has full-time staff lobbyists in 40 states — but it will become more aggressive at the federal level as time passes. Its chief executive wants to put HSUS on par with the NRA in terms of political power — and he doesn’t mean the restaurant association.
Because restaurants occupy the tail end of the farm-to-fork food chain, the industry is affected by animal-rights attacks on food producers. Operators need to roll up their sleeves before it’s too late.
HSUS steadily floats new laws and ballot initiatives – Arizona in 2006, California in 2008 and Ohio last year — and will continue to be active in the years to come. And each new proposal aims to raise the cost of producing and selling animal protein, especially meat, dairy and eggs.
HSUS has just come out with a new ballot initiative in the state of Washington to criminalize the production and sale of eggs that aren’t “cage free.” One University of California at Davis estimate is that a switch to cage free can increase an egg’s production cost by 25 percent. In European countries that HSUS considers ahead of the curve, costs have doubled or tripled. Ultimately, those costs are passed on to restaurants.
The industry is under enough pressure from rising food costs without vegan agitators driving them up even further. With prices of commodities like corn and soybeans up, animal feed is more expensive, so meat prices are also on the rise. One Wall Street Journal headline put it like this: “As Food Prices Soar, Eateries Scramble.”
It’s hard to think of a hamburger as a luxury, but HSUS’s vegan leaders hope to price it out of many consumers’ reach. This is their endgame: driving up prices to make eating meat, cheese and eggs unaffordable for average Americans. In the end, they hope fewer and fewer farm animals will be needed to satisfy those who can afford higher prices.
If you think HSUS will stop with imposing cage-free eggs on the nation, think again. HSUS’s “factory farming” outreach director let the cat out of the bag at the organization’s 2009 conference: “If anyone says cage free is 100-percent humane, 100-percent cruelty free, just know that that’s not accurate.”
Translation: Egg farmers could convert everything to cage-free flocks, and HSUS would still push for ever-more-costly regulations. Has an activist group rolling in dough ever declared, “Mission accomplished,” and closed its doors? As the old saying goes, if you give a mouse a cookie, it’s just going to ask for a glass of milk.
After cage free, the next “humane” step will be “free range.” One free-range farm near me in Northern Virginia charges $4 for a dozen eggs. Could your business afford that as the new normal?
If we adopted the free-range egg requirements here in the United States that are typical in Europe, we’d need over 500 square miles of additional outdoor space just for chickens. If we used Australia’s standard, we’d need an extra 1,700 square miles. That’s a mile-wide strip of land from D.C. to Denver.
It should come as no surprise that eggs can cost $6 a dozen in some parts of Europe, where egg farms are generally smaller and less efficient than ours.
There are tolerant vegans, like Whole Foods chief executive John Mackey and casino developer Steve Wynn, whose businesses still provide animal protein to customers and guests. They’re just ecumenical capitalists.
But intolerant animal rights crusaders who literally believe steak and cheese are the products of bloodbaths and genocide are dissatisfied with anything less than total abolition.
HSUS falls into this category.
There’s a difference between consumer-driven demand and activist-driven demand. The real stakeholders in animal welfare issues are the guests ordering hamburgers and omelets. Slick animal rights activists who would never eat the most humanely raised slice of bacon aren’t stakeholders at all. They’re outsiders.
Remember that when HSUS’s “corporate outreach” director shows up in your lobby or drops you a polite e-mail. Your response should be no response at all. Nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. Surely you’ve heard the wisdom that one should never negotiate with terrorists.
Richard Berman is president of Berman & Co., a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm.
This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors and management of Nation’s Restaurant News.
