By siloing human rights from animal welfare, our regulatory framework makes it harder to see what - or rather who - such cross-species harms have in common.

More than a year has passed since Don Pinnock and Lisakanya Venna's exposé in Daily Maverick (Inside Daybreak) brought public attention to the harrowing treatment of human employees and animal livestock alike on the broiler farms of Daybreak Foods. Much has happened since: Daybreak was placed under business rescue, hundreds of workers were placed on unpaid leave and later marched to the Department of Employment and Labour in a desperate attempt to access TERS funds, and, by April 2026, nearly 1,900 employees had reportedly lost their jobs as the company struggled to survive (see Daybreak Collapse). The Public Investment Corporation, which has invested about R1.7-billion in the company, is now seeking a strategic buyer for the troubled poultry producer.

Arguably, these developments have not displaced the central problem exposed by the original report. Indeed, it has merely further emphasised that Daybreak cannot be dismissed as an isolated episode of managerial failure or corporate misconduct, but must be understood as an ongoing pattern of gross abuse and neglect - thousands of chickens starved to the point of cannibalising one another, and hundreds of employees abandoned to job insecurity, withheld wages and imminent eviction. The story is certainly shocking and...