Nestle Drops Dairy Farm Over Animal Abuse

Top-selling frozen pizza brand DiGiorno and its cheese supplier cut ties with a Wisconsin dairy farm yesterday after an animal rights group released undercover video showing workers beating, kicking, stabbing, and whipping sick and injured cows. Wiese Brothers Farm owner Mark Wiese says that he fired two employees and assigned another to duties that don't involve handling animals after seeing the video. Wiese, who owns the 5,000-cow farm with his brother, says he was not aware of the abuse until late last month.

"My brother and I and our families are just very, very shook up about the whole incident," he says. The farm sold its milk to Foremost Farms. Foremost supplies cheese to DiGiorno, which is owned by Nestle USA. Nestle said in a statement that it had asked Foremost Farms not to send it cheese made from Wiese Brothers Farm's milk. The farm, which is looking for a new buyer for its milk, also faces an investigation by the local sheriff's department. (More Nestle stories.)