Mammoth retailer Walmart, also the largest U.S. grocer, said it will shift to cage-free eggs “based on available supply, affordability and customer demand by 2025.” The transition applies to Walmart and Sam’s Club stores and was the latest in a string of announcements by food chains.
“Since September, when McDonald’s announced its cage-free policy, we knew that we had turned the corner in the fight against battery cages,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States. “But today, that debate ends, and the trajectory of this debate is clear. The era of confining hens in cages in America’s food system is officially sunsetting.”
In the past few days, Ingles Markets, Meijer Inc, and State Bros. Markets announced they would shift entirely to cage-free eggs by 2025, said Supermarket News. All three pointed to changing customer preferences and animal-welfare concerns.
In a blog, Pacelle said the Humane Society “helped nearly a hundred major companies” follow the decision by McDonald’s to buy cage-free eggs. The group was active in voter approval in 2008 of California’s Proposition 2 that required farmers to provide enough space for farm animals to stand up, lie down, turn around freely and fully extend their limbs. The referendum “was the first time voters were asked to eliminate the practice of confining chickens in battery [small, confining] cages,” says Ballotpedia.