In 10 years, US and Canadian McDonald’s restaurants are planning to serve eggs laid only by cage-free hens.
Ever since 2011, McDonald’s USA annually ordered between 12-15 million cage-free eggs. As egg suppliers have started rebuilding flocks in North America after the biggest bird flu outbreak in the history of the country, the long awaited change over is finally happening.
The company decided to start serving fresh breakfast to US citizens starting on October 6th, a move demanded by die-hard customers for as long as a decade. McDonald’s, the biggest restaurant chain in the world, is currently fighting declining sales. However, they managed to regain the customers’ trust when they announced they are planning to eliminate all chicken meat raised on antibiotics or steroids. The announcement was made in May and the phase out process will take about 2 years.
For serving breakfast meals such as Egg White Delight or Egg McMuffin, McDonald’s is buying about 2.1 billion eggs annually for its US and Canadian outlets. According to the US Department of Agriculture, cage-free chicken are different from free-range chicken, which have full access to the outdoors.
Burger King, McDonald’s main fast-food rival, already has promised to use only cage-free eggs by the end of this decade. Currently, other giant companies such as Nestle, Starbucks Corp and General Mills are also in the process of switching over to using only cage-free birds.
Celebrities have joined forces with the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to eliminate battery-cage eggs from the major companies’ egg supply chains. And the results are visible, since a surprisingly large number of companies is starting to endorse animal welfare practices.
Though a timeline for the full transition was not set, Costco Wholesale Corp was convinced by HSUS and Ryan Gosling’s join efforts to commit to going cage-free.
McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Burger King aren’t the only restaurant chains that committed to this idea. More and more food companies from the US are increasingly resorting to using ingredients from suppliers known for using only environmentally ecological practices.
Photo credits: wikipedia
