Email flood in the restaurant: Peta fights frog legs!

Email flood in the restaurant: Peta fights frog legs!

In the past few months, the El Carnicero restaurant in Saarbrücken-Gersweiler has to deal with a wave of emails. The operator, Thorsten Franzmann, has received up to 600 of these communications per month for over a year. The content is always identical: the senders require the Frosch leg restaurant removing the menu. The flood of e-mail is perceived as harmful to business and frustrating. On peak days, up to 100 messages even flutter into the mailbox at the same time. Despite discussions with the police and multiple attempts to look for dialogue with PETA, solutions have so far failed to materialize. PETA, the animal welfare organization, has launched a petition that is directed against around 20 restaurants and mail order companies in Germany, including several in Saarland.

The organization claims that frogs in the production countries in Asia are kept and killed under cruel conditions. The petition of over 7150 supporters was signed until the editorial deadline. PETA enables the signatories to send automated emails to the affected restaurants. This flood of email should be stopped if the restaurants assure in writing to permanently remove frog legs from their offer. Interestingly, the Le Schloss Halberg restaurant, although it no longer serves frog legs, still receives emails from PETA.

contrary positions and a fixed point of view

Despite the pressure on the part of Peta, Thorsten Franzmann plans to continue to offer frog legs unless a state ban is issued. "We don't deviate from our position," he explains. These hardened fronts between Peta and the restaurant operators are hardly able to approach. PETA defends the campaign as a legitimate means of civil society engagements and sees itself in the moral duty to draw attention to animal suffering.

A similar case takes place in Frankfurt. PETA filed a criminal complaint against a Chinese restaurant there that offers frog legs. According to PETA, this violates the Animal Welfare Act and thus provides aid to the animal abuse. The public prosecutor's office in Frankfurt has confirmed the receipt of the advertisement, but did not name the restaurant by name. Interestingly, an employee said that there has been no frog legs on the menu for three quarters. The current menu is technical and is being revised.

peta refers to frog legs as a “animal quality product” because frogs are abused with full consciousness. The catch of wild frogs is prohibited in Europe, but there are frog farms in some countries like France that question this responsible action. In many European countries, including Belgium and France, frozen frog legs are even offered in supermarkets. In another Frankfurt restaurant, in the kitchen of which frog legs were also prepared, the origin of the product could not be clarified, which led to the rejection of an investigation.

PETA confirms that the origin of the goods is crucial for the legal consequences. There is support for your advertisement not only from the eliminates of animal suffering, but also from the general public. However, it remains unclear whether a dialogue between the parties involved is possible.

The debate about frog legs on the menus shows how animal welfare matters in the catering could encounter resistance. The story of El Carnicero and the e-mails is only part of a larger conflict on ethics and responsibility in gastronomy.