The Dark Side of Ajinomoto: ‘Star Wars Stormtroopers’ to Confront Execs Over Animal Tests

June 27, 2023 –
From PETA

2,282 views

For Immediate Release:
June 27, 2023

Contact:
Amanda Hays 202-483-7382

Tokyo – Tomorrow, a troop of PETA supporters in Star Wars stormtrooper armor will descend on the entrance to Ajinomoto Co. Inc.’s annual shareholder meeting while inside, a representative with the group asks executives, “When will Ajinomoto follow the global trend and abolish all animal testing that is not explicitly required by law?”

This action and shareholder question will address Ajinomoto’s animal-testing policy, which allows for the continuation of nearly all the same tests it has been conducting and funding for decades. The company is violating its own “3R” policy to replace, reduce, and refine the use of animals. Instead, it remains on the dark side, continuing to greenlight these tests even though animal-free research methods for these purposes are readily available.

Don’t miss this intergalactic showdown!

Where: Ajinomoto Group Takanawa Training Center, 3-13-65 Takanawa, Minato-ku, Tokyo

When: Tuesday, June 27, 9 a.m. sharp

“Ajinomoto will be on the dark side of history as long as it continues to torment animals in painful and invasive experiments, all to market food and beverages to humans,” says PETA Senior Vice President Jason Baker. “PETA is urging Ajinomoto to embrace the force of compassion and join the dozens of other global food giants that have ended animal tests and embraced humane and superior non-animal research. Ajinomoto, the galaxy is watching, and the choice is yours: Jedi or Sith? May compassion be with you.”

PETA has uncovered that since the 1950s, Ajinomoto experimenters have cut open dogs’ stomachs, inserted tubes into them, starved the animals, fed them MSG, taken their stomach fluid, and injected them with drugs, purportedly to establish health claims for marketing the company’s food products and ingredients. Some of Ajinomoto’s other tests have involved inserting tubes into day-old piglets’ arteries and starving them, electroshocking rats, and compelling mice to fight each other. These tests are neither relevant to human health nor required by law.

The full text of PETA Asia’s shareholder question is available upon request.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.