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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: November 2006

Battery cage opponents emboldened by success

 

WASHINGTON D.C., LONDON--Years used to pass between Humane Society of the U.S. announcements of progress on behalf of battery-caged egg-laying hens. In mid-October 2006 two such announcements came just 24 hours apart.

Nineteen years after HSUS upset consumers and donors with a short-lived "breakfast of cruelty" campaign against bacon and eggs, a younger generation of consumers and donors is responding enthusiastically to a similar message.

About 95% of total U.S. egg production comes from battery caged hens, but that could change fast.
Under comparable campaign pressure, British caged egg producers have already lost 40% of the market, the research firm Mintel reported in August 2006 to the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Demand for cage-free eggs has increased 31% since 2002, Mintel found.
The findings were published just as the British Egg Industry Council asked the European Parliament to delay implementing the European Laying Hens Directive 1999, banning the sale of battery cage-produced eggs in Europe after 2012.

By then, producers are required to use larger cages, including perches, a nest, and litter on the floor. Seemingly small as the changes are, the British Egg Industry Council claims they cannot be met without the cost causing a severe drop in productivity.

A somewhat double-edged example is reportedly under government investigation in Australia. "Data suggests that the number of free-range hens in the country could only produce about 80% of the eggs that are labeled as such," summarized Farmed Animal Watch. "Currently, 15% of eggs marketed to Australian consumers are labeled as having come from free-ranging hens."

Commented Royal SPCA of Australia president Hugh Wirth, "There is enough circumstantial evidence to worry everybody, including the RSPCA, because we have an accreditation scheme. Our good name is on the carton."

Unclear is whether the issue is simply that demand for cage-free eggs is rising faster than the supply, or that the industry is being intentionally duplicitous instead of replacing battery cages.

Egg industry analysts believe U.S. consumers will follow the British and Australian examples. The only question is how rapidly the transition will occur.

On October 17, 2006, responding to the development that may make U.S. egg producers most anxious, the Humane Society of the U.S. praised the Associated Residence Halls at the University of Iowa for making permanent their spring 2006 introduction of cage-free eggs at three dining facilities that cumulatively use more than one million eggs per year.

"In advance of the vote, the university hosted an on-campus discussion with presentations by both HSUS, in favor of a cage-free egg policy, and the Iowa Egg Council, against it," HSUS noted. "Both the Iowa City Press-Citizen and Daily Iowan editorialized in favor of the cage-free egg policy."

That came in the middle of the U.S. agricultural heartland.

A day later, on October 18, HSUS praised Wild Oats Community Market for dropping sales of eggs from battery-caged hens.

"Major grocery chains such as Whole Foods Market and Wild Oats Natural Marketplace have stopped selling cage eggs," HSUS recited. "Trader Joe's has converted its private line eggs to cage-free. Bon Appétit, a major food service company, is phasing out the use of cage eggs in all of its 400 cafés. Frozen dessert maker Ben & Jerry's is also phasing out the use of cage eggs in its ice creams. Even companies such as AOL and Google have ended the use of cage eggs in their employee cafeterias.
"Tufts University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Marist College, Vassar College, Roger Williams University, Clark University, Lesley University, Emman-uel College, and the University of New Hampshire have joined 100 others across the country in enacting policies to eliminate or greatly reduce their use of cage eggs," HSUS added.

Ben & Jerry's, using about 2.7 million pounds of egg yolks per year, told Associated Press writer Wilson Ring that completing the conversion to cage-free will take about four years, while producers revamp their systems to meet the new requirements.

"We're pleased to include free-range eggs in our European ice cream," Ben & Jerry's London affiliate said, "but we have not yet found an economically manageable way to do the same for our U.S. production."

Founded in 1978 by Vermont entrepreuers Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Ben & Jerry's was purchased in 2000 by the Dutch-based Unilever conglomerate. In earlier gestures toward improved animal welfare, Ben & Jerry's quit buying milk from cows whose production has been stimulated by the hormone drug bovine somatotropin (BST), and in August 2006 quit buying eggs from Michael Foods at HSUS request.

Ben & Jerry's dropped Michael Foods two months after HSUS marketing outreach coordinator Erin Williams disclosed hidden camera video of alleged abuses at a Michael Foods battery cage facility in Wakefield, Nebraska.

The video showed "live hens confined in cages with decomposing birds, hens unable to untangle themselves [after becoming] caught in the wire cages, sick and injured hens, and immobilized hens dying from starvation, only inches away from food and water," Williams told Sioux City Journal staff writer Bret Hayworth.

"Michael Foods supplies eggs to Pillsbury, Hellmann's, Kraft, and Hostess," Hayworth wrote.

For several years the egg industry seemed inclined to try to dodge consumer pressure by merely changing the labels on egg cartons. That strategy ran into legal trouble.

"A certification program must not be promoted in a way that misleads consumers," warned District of Columbia attorney general Robert J. Spagnoletti in September 2006, announcing an agreement between United Egg Producers and 16 states under which the egg producers agreed to permanently quit printing the slogan "Animal Care Certified" on egg boxes, and to pay the states $100,000 toward the costs of legal fees and consumer education.

United Egg Producers in November 2005 suspended use of "Animal Care Certified" after Compassion Over Killing complained to the Federal Trade Commission that it was deceptive. Participants in the labeling program now use the phrase "United Egg Producers Certified."

In a parallel case, the Philadelphia activist group Hugs For Puppies in May 2006 won an agreement that Kreider Farms will change web site advertisements claiming Kreider laying hens are "happy and well-treated" to state that the hens are "contented and well-treated." Brokered by the Better Business Bureau, the agreement was not disclosed until late August.

The difference in the wording may not seem large, but "marks the first time that the bureau has ruled against an agricultural enterprise for claiming its animals are happy," Hugs For Puppies director Nick Cooney told Patrick Burns of the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal. "The claim of 'happy and well-treated hens' is not only way out of line with the scientific evidence, but also with what the overwhelming majority of Americans consider to be humane treatment," Cooney added.

"A Hugs For Puppies member pleaded guilty earlier this year to trespassing at Kreider Farms when he videotaped conditions inside one of the company's chicken houses," Burns mentioned. Activist Chris Price was arrested in March.

Repeatedly stung by hidden-camera investigations, the egg industry has pursued strengthened penalties for trespassing, citing concern that intruders might introduce or spread poultry diseases, and has tried to keep cases out of court if they might result in wider exposure of conditions.

In Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, a high-profile prosecution of Esbenshade Farms chief executive H. Glenn Esbenshade and farm manager Jay Musser for alleged cruelty to chickens was suspended on August 6, 2006 after the prosecution and defense agreed to seek a negotiated settlement.

"Elizabethtown District Judge Jayne F. Duncan heard about five and a half hours of testimony from two of the four witnesses the prosecution planned to present," reported Martha Raffaele of Associated Press, "and then attorneys for both sides spent more than an hour in private conference with their clients. After the hearing, neither side's lawyers would say why they chose to negotiate a settlement instead of continuing with the trial."

HSUS funded the prosecution, by permission of the Lancaster County District Attorney. The evidence reportedly consisted chiefly of undercover video made by activist John Brothers, while employed by Esbenshade Farms.