Updated: This petition includes the signatures from The Good Food Now! Coalition consisting of Friends of the Earth, Food Chain Workers Alliance, Green America, Restaurant Opportunities Center-United, Animal Welfare Institute, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, Center for Biological Diversity and CREDO Action. The coalition delivered these petitions the week of May 7th to Darden headquarters.

Original text:

The world’s largest restaurant corporation makes more than $6 billion in sales each year and controls over 1,500 restaurants. But it also has a terrible environmental and labour record that it’s shown little interest in improving.

Darden -- the owner of the Olive Garden -- was found last year to use seafood from a supplier in Thailand known to use slave labour. It uses horrible factory farmed meats and dairy that exploit animals and human labour for huge profits. And it lobbied Congress for the right to keep paying its own employees peanuts -- as little as $2.13 an hour in some cases.

Darden represents everything that’s wrong with the restaurant industry: criminally low wages, unsustainable food practices and unethical supply chains. Our allies at Friends of the Earth have already raised 25,000 voices to make things right. But we need to do more.

Will you add your voice and demand Darden serve food that’s better for both people and the planet?

With over 320 million meals served every year, Darden could have an immense impact on the way restaurant workers are paid and the way healthy, sustainable food is harvested. Imagine what would happen to the industry if each of Darden’s 1,500 restaurants started selling beef without antibiotics, ethically harvested shrimp and paying its employees a living wage.

We can make this happen. Darden already promises “to provide guests with nutritious, high-quality and responsibly sourced food, as well as operate responsibly by protecting the natural environment.” We just need to make sure it keeps its promise. That’s why we’re asking Darden specifically to ensure at least 20% of its food purchases adhere to the Good Food Purchasing Principles by 2020.

This is a historic campaign. Help us change the restaurant industry and make Darden commit to “Good Food” now.

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