Is the UK egg sector on track to be cage-free by 2025?

Food companies have called on the government to bolster action on the phasing out of cages just weeks before a voluntary retail pledge to be cage-free by 2025 comes into effect. In a letter to environment secretary Steve Reed, food companies Waitrose, the Co-op, Marks and Spencer, Morrisons, Greggs and Mitchells & Butler said they had all eliminated caged egg-laying hens or committed to do so by the end of 2025, but were concerned that there would still be 4 million UK laying hens. This, they argued in the letter, would create an unlevel playing field in the industry. Time is indeed running out for UK retailers who pledged to be cage-free by 2025, according to a poultry welfare charity that has been campaigning on the issue for nearly 2 decades. Since 2005, the British Hen Welfare Trust has been encouraging consumers to influence hen welfare with their purses by opting for the best eggs they could afford in the supermarket, as “change happens best from the ground up”. ALSO READ: ...