22 councils receive good egg awards

Published 02/07/2009

22 councils have received a 'Good Egg Award' for committing to ditch the battery cage egg in favour of eggs from free-range hens.

The councils' pioneering move across areas including staff catering, schools and care homes will ensure more than 10,000 hens supplying over 2.7 million eggs each year will be spared a life of misery in a cage.

Compassion in World Farming wants to encourage local governments to support higher standards of animal welfare when purchasing and supplying food and meals. Our cage-free councils campaign, launched in 2007, has seen an increasing number of councils taking the welfare of hens seriously by moving to café-free eggs in their catering.

Compassion in World Farming's Campaigns Co-ordinator, Eloise Shavelar said: 'We congratulate all of these councils for going free-range and hope that other councils 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 recently encouraged public sector bodies to move away from using battery eggs whether used as shell eggs or in products containing eggs. With Defra's support we now hope even more councils will make the move.

IS YOUR LOCAL COUNCIL CAGE-FREE?

Join our cage-free council campaign by urging your local council to switch to barn or free-range eggs. There are lots of good reasons for councils to switch to cage-free eggs from consumer concerns to supporting sustainable farming. Please help us sweep this change across the country.

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