A Wisconsin dairy farm that supplied milk to make cheese for a national frozen pizza brand made the naughty list in December after video footage shot at the farm showed employees mistreating animals.

This is not the first time that Mercy For Animals has gone undercover to report alleged misdeeds at farms. The group is the same that recorded secret footage of animals allegedly mistreated at an Idaho dairy last year.

That same group, led by its director of investigations, Matt Rice, attacked the Wisconsin dairy, telling ABC News’ Lee Ferran there was “a culture of cruelty that was allowed to fester at this factory farm facility. No socially responsible corporation should support dairy operations that beat, kick, mutilate and drag animals."

The group got its wish.

Wiese Brothers Farm supplied milk to Foremost Farms, which in turn supplied cheese to DiGiorno for its pizzas. After learning about the animal cruelty, Nestle, which owns the pizza brand, told Foremost Farms it no longer would accept cheese made from milk from Wiese Brothers.

“Nestlé is outraged and deeply saddened by the mistreatment of animals shown in this video,” the company said in a prepared statement.

Foremost Farms said that it too was "extremely disappointed by the animal treatment depicted in the video" and the company is "no longer receiving milk from this farm."

Wiese Brothers said it was unaware of the animal cruelty happening at the farm.

“We are shocked and saddened to see a few of our employees not following our farm’s policies for proper animal care,” Wiese Brothers Farm said in a statement submitted to ABC News in December. “We have zero tolerance for animal abuse. We are committed to providing optimal care and ask all our employees to demonstrate ongoing respect for every animal at all times.”

The farm says it has taken steps to address the situation, including firing two of its employees, removing a third employee from animal-handling responsibilities, cooperating with law enforcement, hiring an independent animal care auditor to evaluate the farm’s written protocols for animal handling, updating its employee animal treatment pledge, and implementing secret supervision to make sure employees are following protocol.

“Each of these actions, along with any others we add as appropriate, will help us ensure the behaviors seen in this video are never repeated on our farm,” the statement concludes.

Owner Mark Wiese, in an Associated Press article by M.L. Johnson, said he did not know what led to the abuse.

"I can't put myself in their state of mind at the time of these incidents and everything like that, and that's all stuff that's going to have to come out as we continue to investigate," he said. "It touched a nerve with everyone in the dairy."

Rice said the revelation is the latest of two-dozen undercover investigations by the group into food suppliers around the country. Each, he said, were found to have appalling conditions.

The group, however, halted undercover camera investigations into animal cruelty in some farm states, including Iowa and Utah, where laws against such filming went into effect last year. The Humane Society of the United States also stopped its hidden-camera investigations in those states. Other states, while not condoning the practice of animal cruelty, also have looked at legislation to stop hidden-camera investigations.

“The dairy industry is recognizing that we must be willing to condemn practices that can’t be defended,” Charlie Arnot wrote in a Dec. 29, 2012 column for Progressive Dairyman, “but the industry is also realizing there is benefit in sharing the public’s disdain of inappropriate animal care in a way that protects the integrity of the industry and highlights improvements at the targeted farm.” PD

—Summarized by PD staff from cited sources