A New Zealand billboard is coming under fire for its latest food advertisement.
According to the Huffington Post, Hell Pizza chain in Wellington, New Zealand unveiled a billboard for the chain's rabbit-topped pizzas. To promote their new product, Hell Pizza created a billboard with actual rabbit pelts, along with the tagline "Made from real rabbit. Like this billboard."
Hell Pizza's rabbit-topped pizzas was a promotional Easter special, which featured smoked wild New Zealand rabbit, toasted pine nuts, beetroot and horopito relish, cream cheese, rosemary, and fresh spring onions.
"Were the once-lively little animals who were ground into pizza toppings shot, strangled or snared? Were they gassed, or did they have their spines pulled away from their necks?" Mimi Bekhech, PETA U.K.'s associate director, asked The Huffington Post U.K. "Those are the common ways in which rabbits are killed by people who sell a bit of tat for gloves and collars -- and now, if anyone other than the village bully is buying, to go on pizza. As for the name, 'Hell' sounds about right, because it's what the rabbits likely experienced before they were made part of this tacky PR stunt."
In the aftermath of the controversy, the pizzeria explained on Facebook that they "sourced these rabbit skins via a professional animal tanning company, who in turn sourced them from local meat processing companies where the skins are a regular by-product."
According to Stop Press, a New Zealand marketing blog, Hell Pizza's general manager Ben Cumming said that rabbit meat was considered an underrated meat and stated that compared to cow meat, rabbit meat produced six times the meat, even when given the same amounts of food and water.
