Animal rights activists blockade McDonald’s distribution centers, demanding 100-percent plant-based menu by 2025

An animal rights group is blockading McDonald’s distribution centers in the United Kingdom and demanding the fast food chain go to a 100-percent plant-based menu by 2025.

“Animal Rebellion, a mass movement using nonviolent civil disobedience to call for a sustainable plant-based food system, is demanding that McDonald’s becomes fully plant-based by 2025,” the group said in a press release.

The group is blockading four of the main McDonald’s distribution centers in the United Kingdom for 24 hours using trucks and bamboo structures to prevent the transportation of supplies to McDonald’s in the U.K.

The group says over 1,300 McDonald’s restaurants rely on these distribution centers and serve over 3.5 million customers a day.

“The meat and dairy industry is destroying our planet: causing huge amounts of rainforest deforestation, emitting immense quantities of greenhouse gases and killing billions of animals each year. The only sustainable and realistic way to feed 10 billion people is with a plant-based food system,” James Ozden, a spokesperson for Animal Rebellion, said. “Organic, free-range and ‘sustainable’ animal-based options simply aren’t good enough.” 

A spokesperson for McDonald’s told The Associated Press it is looking into the impact this blockade will have, and apologized to its customers “for any disappointment caused.”

The group says its protest will have a “significant disruption to the McDonald’s supply chain.”