Six days before Xmas, 20 people dressed as turkeys and equipped with D-locks and arm tubes, halted two lorries in the entrance of one of Asda’s UK distribution centres.
With their ‘just in time’ restocking and one truck arriving every few minutes, the two-hour blockade at Dartford was deemed to have been pretty costly to Asda. Clearing the backlog would have taken some time.
A banner told Asda to stuff its GM turkeys and head office was informed that there would be more blockades of their distribution centres around the country if they ignored public opinion.
Asda was chosen because of its connection with the giant US buyer, Walmart, to whom American farmers would be looking to sell their crops in 2001.
Similar actions occurred in New Zealand two days later. Ten people dressed as chickens blockaded a feedmill, and a few days later others chained themselves to a boat bringing in animal feed.
In Britain, concerned chickens roosted on Cargill’s Liverpool plant and blocked the weighstation with a truck. Two weeks before, dischuffed persons locked onto lorries and climbed silos at an Exeter animal feed mill owned by BOMC Pauls, the main producer of GM animal feed in the UK.