McDonald’s has announced it will buy only cage-free eggs,
starting the switch-over immediately in Canada and the United States, but
allowing 10 years for a complete transition.
Chief executive officer Steve Easterbrook said it’s part of
McDonald’s determination to be a "modern, progressive burger
company."
In March he announced that McDonald’s will be switching to
chickens raised without most antibiotics.
In April he said it would raise pay for workers at
company-owned stores, which represent about 10 per cent of its domestic
locations.
The decision to switch to cage-free eggs, known as
free-range in Canada, signals a growing sensitivity among customers to animal
welfare issues.
That has been fuelled in part by chains such as Chipotle
that have made animal welfare standards part of their marketing.
Pork was hit over the winter with a campaign to get rid of
sow gestation crates.
It’s part of a change of strategy by animal welfare groups,
some of them vegetarians, to apply pressure to supermarket and restaurant
chains to further their aims.
In Canada, the welfare goals run into supply management and
farmers who are used to getting their full cost of production plus a return on
labour, management and investments without having to meet any special
retail-chain requirements.
There are, nonetheless, quota-holding farmers who do comply
in return for premiums. The Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission has,
however, declared a number of times that it opposes premiums.
