Stella co-hosted the premiere at the Curzon Mayfair on Meat Free Monday 8 February, joined by sister Mary, the film’s director, Robert Kenner, and co-producer, Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation. Other guests included Thandie Newton, Richard E. Grant, Vivienne Westwood and chefs Raymond Blanc and Tom Aikens.
“I decided to co-host the premiere of Food, Inc. because it is the kind of film everyone should see and it is information everyone should have,” Stella McCartney said. “It is terrifying and empowering and we are just trying to show the film to as many people as possible that might make a change. Just by watching it, I felt I had done something for not only myself but my children as well.”
The film takes an uncompromising look at the industrialisation of food production in the US, offering a stark insight into the conditions in which animals bred for food are kept, the unsuitable feed and chemicals they’re given, and the way they’ve been biologically altered to increase production and profit. Chickens in the US have been engineered to have bigger breasts, for example, and find themselves on the slaughterhouse conveyor belt within 49 days of being raised.
The film took the US by storm when it was released there last year, resulting in an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary. It is released in UK cinemas on Friday 12 February, with nationwide screenings from Meat Free Monday 15 February.
A panel discussion took place after the premiere, and guests were so enthused by panellists Kenner, Schlosser, Stonyfield Farm chairman Gary Hirshberg and Soil Association (SA) director Patrick Holden, that they donated more than £1,500 to the SA. A post-premiere party took place at Stella’s flagship Mayfair store, where guests tucked into vege hotdogs, burgers and pizza.