A group of 15 vegan activists held a demonstration inside Worthing’s Morrisons supermarket yesterday. The protestors claimed that the supermarket sourced its meat from a pig farm that treated its animals unjustly.

The group carried images of pigs lying in cramped pens, as well as signs that read “#ExposeMorrison’s” and “#MeatTheVictims2UK”. Their cause was to expose the public to their shopping choices and give visibility to “standard farming practices.”

The protest was inspired by the sit-in protest at Moss Rose Piggeries Ltd, Blackpool, in early July. Here, 100 animal rights activists refused to leave the premises for 9 hours despite being faced by farmers and the police. The group in Worthing claimed Moss Rose Piggeries supplied meat to Morrisons.

Yesterday’s activists were all members of the Direct Action Everywhere’s Brighton branch. The activists read out speeches that were previously given at the Moss Rose Piggeries Ltd protest, and held a minute’s silence between each speech.

One spokesperson said:

On June 8, I went inside Moss Rose Piggery. What I saw there was heartbreaking – shed after concrete shed filled with pigs who were covered in their own waste, fighting one another out of the boredom that comes with being an intelligent animal trapped in a pen with no stimulation. They are forced to eat, sleep and go to the toilet in the same area, which is unnatural considering that pigs are the cleanest farm animals, and like to have different areas for different activities.

Another said:

The only solution is total animal liberation; total abolition of this tortuous system. Animals will never be shown the respect they deserve when they are being farmed, even on high welfare farms like this one, which has the red tractor stamp of approval.

The police arrived at the scene after the demonstrators had left. A Morrisons spokesperson has since spoken out against the in-store demonstration:

Vegan animal rights activists have a right to protest but we would politely ask them to remain in a public place – rather than our store – and not disrupt our customers and colleagues.

The Brighton-based Direct Action Everywhere group have held similar demonstrations across Brighton, including in Waitrose, McDonalds and Hisbe.

The farmer of Moss Rose Piggeries Ltd, Wayne Baguley, has stated that he has nothing to hide, and that his farm has been inspected by the relevant authorities.