Environmental and animal rights activists occupied a factory of the Dutch dairy multinational FrieslandCampina in Rotterdam. On Friday morning, around thirty members of Animal Rebellion and Extinction Rebellion gathered at the entrance of the factory. Some chained themselves to dairy tanks.
They were holding banners saying ‘Ditch Dairy’, ‘Make it Climate friendly’ and ‘Campina be honest, your milk is not PlanetProof’. They accuse FrieslandCampina of greenwashing by misleading the public with their ‘On the way to PlanetProof’ promises.
“The only way to become ‘PlanetProof’ in the long term and to make a positive climate impact is to switch to the production of 100% vegetable milk,” the rebels said in a press release. And according to them, FrieslandCampina is not doing that. “Dairy production has a major negative impact on both the climate and global biodiversity.”
Animal Rebellion and Extinction Rebellion want FrieslandCampina to scale down their animal milk production and switch entirely to the production of vegetable milk by 2025 to truly be “On the way to PlanetProof”.
A manager of FrieslandCampina came to talk to the activists. According to one of the activists, they said they’d “only continue to innovate and become more sustainable within the cow milk industry”.
Disappointed with the outcome of the talk, the rebels remained chained at the factory site until they were taken away by police.
FrieslandCampina is the sixth-largest dairy group in the world. In addition to Campina milk, the company is also the producer of Chocomel, Fristi, Friesche Vlag, Mona desserts, Milner cheese, Optimel and Vifit.
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