Golden Arches Rejects Cage Eggs

Golden Arches Rejects Cage Eggs

Animal advocacy group SAFE is claiming a victory for the animals, following a change in McDonald’s New Zealand’s animal welfare policy. McDonald's has announced it will no longer be using eggs from caged hens in its restaurants from December 2016.

In 2012 McDonald's stopped using cage eggs in its Christchurch and Dunedin restaurants. Today brings the news that McDonald's is to move away from all cage eggs across the country – including eggs from the newly introduced and controversial colony cages.

SAFE’s executive director Hans Kriek says SAFE has long pressured the country's largest fast-food retailer to go cage free, so welcomes the move. "SAFE is pleased to see McDonald’s responding to growing public concern about the treatment of caged hens. Caged hens suffer unimaginable hardship from being kept inside small, cramped cages.”

SAFE says the announcement is a significant breakthrough in the campaign against factory farming of hens. The organisation is pleased that McDonald’s has rejected eggs produced in colony cages, a new cage system that will replace conventional battery cages by 2022. Colony cages are battery cages with small modifications. 60 birds are kept per cage with each bird having just over an A4 piece of paper amount of space.

"The use of free-range eggs by a low-cost chain such as McDonald's sends a clear message to the government, the industry, and other companies that caged hen farming is no longer acceptable and that the time has come to move away from these cruel systems entirely," says Mr Kriek.

ENDS

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