Although some 70 percent of U.S. egg production will come from cage-free hens in 2025 to meet food industry commitments, the market for cage-free eggs is thin at the moment, says United Egg Producers, a farmers’ cooperative. UEP chief executive Chad Gregory told Food Navigator, “We are stuck right now” because producers are not seeing the revenue the industry needs—which he estimated at $9 billion—for the make-over from the battery cage system now in use.
“Egg farmers can’t flip a switch on Dec. 31, 2024; they need to start building these [cage-free] farms now, when their consumers aren’t willing to pay for them. So the egg industry has basically stopped building cage-free barns because there is actually a surplus,” Gregory told Food Navigator. It costs $45 per bird for a farm to convert to cage-free production, which requires more room for chickens to move around. Farmers who convert now are at a competitive disadvantage, Gregory said, because they won’t see an immediate return from the conversion.
Grocery shoppers overwhelmingly buy lower-priced eggs, which come from caged hens, so retailers are not scaling up orders for cage-free eggs. Some foodmakers have begun the switch to cage-free eggs in their recipes, said Gregory, while retailers and restaurants appear to be waiting to act until their self-imposed deadlines arrive.