Bacon's College will join top UK companies including Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury’s in becoming ‘Good Eggs’ at an awards ceremony at the LGA Conference on 6th July in Bournemouth for their commitment to only use cage-free (barn, free-range or organic) eggs. Poet Pam Ayres will be presenting the awards.
Now in their 4th year, the Good Egg Awards have been developed by Compassion in World Farming to celebrate the commitment of companies and organisations to stop using eggs from battery caged hens. Bacon's College pioneering move will ensure that hundreds of hens supplying the College with eggs each year will be spared a life of misery in a cage. They will be free to carry out many of their natural behaviours, unlike hens kept in barren battery cage systems.
Bacon's College is one of a growing number of local authorities in the UK to receive a 2010 Good Egg Award. The recognition comes in the framework of Compassion in World Farming’s ‘Cage-free Councils’ campaign, which is gaining the support of a growing number of concerned citizens across Great Britain.
Compassion in World Farming’s Head of Food Business, Rowen West-Henzell said: ‘We congratulate Bacon's College for going cage-free and hope that other schools will follow their example. All local authorities have a clear opportunity to lead the way in animal welfare standards, ahead of the 2012 EU ban on barren battery cages. Central and local government offices are important users of eggs – they employ over 2.5 million staff with most providing food for employees and to supply local contracts including schools, residential units and social services. "
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has in the past encouraged public sector bodies to move away from using battery eggs whether used as shell eggs or in products containing eggs.
The issue of animal welfare in public spending has also been supported within the House of Commons. More than 150 MPs supported a motion tabled in 2008 calling on public bodies to procure food with higher standards of farm animal welfare. The motion stated that battery eggs are no longer appropriate.
About the Good Egg Awards - This is the fourth year of the Good Egg Awards. The full list of 2010 winners will be available at http://www.ciwf.org.uk/good_egg_winners_09 after July 5th - To date, Good Egg Award winners have released over 20 million hens from cages every year due to their cage-free egg policies or commitments to stop sourcing their eggs from cage systems.- For more information on the ‘Cage-free Councils’ campaign please see http://www.ciwf.org/councils
European law on battery cages - There are around 400 million laying hens in Europe, over two thirds of which are currently housed in battery cages. The EU Laying Hens Directive will ban the production of conventional battery eggs in the EU from 2012. The directive will permit the use of enriched battery cages which offer little welfare improvement and the import of conventional battery eggs from outside the EU.
Consumer data on cage-free eggs - Independent Kantar data (2010) shows that sales of higher welfare cage-free eggs shell eggs accounted for 66 per cent of the total spend on eggs in the twelve months to 21 March 2010 compared with 62% the year before. This means that the majority of shell eggs sold (52.6% by volume) are now from hens that are free from cages (compared with 47.3% in the same period in 2008-09. - The UK’s Office of National Statistics has included large free range eggs in its 2009 Basket of Goods and Services survey in order to better reflect public spending habits. The basket is used to calculate the Consumer Prices Index inflation measure. - Although the consumer trend for free-range is growing steadily in the UK, 55% of the UK hen flock is still kept in battery cages. Currently more than two thirds of Europe’s hens are kept in battery cages, but some countries’ national figures, such as Spain rise to 97 per cent. - The Co-operative’s 2008 Food Ethical Policy consultation found that its members rated animal welfare the most important ethical issue (The Co-operative Food Ethical Policy, Food Ethical Policy consultation, 2008).- Despite the economic downturn, farm animal welfare has remained high on the agenda for retailers and consumers Where the public sector is concerned, according to a recent YouGov survey (YouGov, June 2010), 63% of GB adults would prefer that the catering in schools, care homes and other establishments funded by their local council didn’t use caged eggs. Only 6% disagreed - Business in the Community’s Plough to Plate report also demonstrated that UK customers continue to expect improvements in animal welfare and rate it as the most important priority for food companies, despite companies believing it was an issue they were responding to satisfactorily. It suggested companies need to provide more evidence about how they are tackling priority animal welfare issues. (Plough to Plate: The opportunities and challenges of running a responsible UK food and drink business, Business in the Community, 2007)