“No hormones, ever” is what Shake Shack mentioned concerning the crispy fried hen in its sandwiches. A shareholder group says that’s a paltry declare, as a result of actually no restaurant chain within the nation makes use of hormones in its hen.
The corporate’s company communications and advertising are heavy on the claims. A 2023 letter from CEO Randy Garutti in its Stand For Something Good Report mentioned the Shake Shack culinary staff in 2023 centered on enhancing the meals lineup with “hormone- and antibiotic-free proteins.” It touts its poultry – and bacon – as having no hormones, though the corporate notes with an asterisk that federal rules prohibit using hormones or steroids in hen and pork.
Now, the corporate is going through a possible shareholder proposal asking it to point out precisely how its hen is hormone free or to supply a proof and to publish a danger evaluation of creating these statements. The shareholder activist, The Accountability Board, mentioned the claims are “difficult to understand.” The group focuses on stewardship and transparency, in accordance with its web site, and its portfolio contains investments in different quick meals companies together with Jack within the Box, McDonald’s and The Wendy’s Firm.
Shake Shack this week requested the Securities and Alternate Fee to depart the proposal off its 2024 proxy assertion with out going through repercussions from the regulator. Based on Shake Shack, it has already begun altering its wording to say, “no added hormones.”
Josh Balk, chief government officer of the Accountability Board, isn’t happy with that change. “Shake Shack can’t make harmful and false claims for years and quietly sweep them under the rug when caught,” he mentioned in an electronic mail to Bloomberg. “And especially so by simply replacing one misleading claim for another.”
A Shake Shack spokesperson acknowledged the change to “no added hormones” and added, “We are also not making any changes to our chicken suppliers or any of our supply chain and food policies — it is simply a language change.”
Shake Shack isn’t alone in going through down shareholders who’re disenchanted with animal welfare points.
Activist investor Carl Icahn famously took on McDonald’s for years over the quick meals large’s treatment of pigs. Icahn in his combat sought the assistance of different massive traders however finally misplaced a proxy combat in 2022.
McDonald’s pledged to keep away from using gestation crates for pregnant pigs totally by 2024.
