Companies need more hens and housing to meet their cage-free targets.
The earliest of the cage-free targets is scheduled for 2025. It’s doubtful that the food manufacturers, restaurant chains, and retail grocery stores that committed would have access to enough cage-free hen eggs to fulfill their commitments on time. According to Richard Gates, PhD, director of the Egg Industry Center at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, there are two potential future directions for the organization: increased funding for cage-free operations and redesigned objectives.
He made this statement during a presentation on February 17 at BakingTech 2021, a virtual event hosted by the American Society of Baking. Late in 2015, a lot of businesses started to announce that they were going to buy only 100% cage-free eggs.
According to Dr. Gates, in order to reach those targets, the industry will require 224 million hens laying eggs in cage-free systems by 2026, up from the current total of 80 million. By 2026, roughly 140 million cage-free hens will be available if the industry keeps up its current pace of substituting cage-free housing for traditional hen housing, according to the industry.
Restaurant chains, grocery stores in retail stores, and food manufacturers have multiple options when it comes to meeting deadlines, according to Dr. Gates. They could contribute money and investments to help with the development of cage-free systems. They have two options: they can backtrack on their promises and continue using traditional methods, or they can take their time switching to 100% cage-free eggs.
“2025 may not be the year, but 2030 or 2035,” stated Dr. Gates.
Investment in cage-free operations could be hampered by the price volatility of eggs.
That makes lenders pause, according to Dr. Gates. Market volatility bothers lenders. In order to calculate a return on investment in a reasonable manner, they prefer market stability.
Cage-free eggs are defined as those laid by hens that are allowed to roam both vertically and horizontally in indoor houses and that have access to fresh water and food, according to United Egg Producers, a cooperative of US egg farmers located in Johns Creek, Georgia. The hens must be given the freedom to behave in their natural habitats, which include scratch patches, perches, and nests.
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Establishing a supply chain for birds and feed, building the facility, which may take five or six months after contracts are issued, and obtaining permits—which could take three months to three years—are all necessary steps in creating a cage-free system. Orders for chicks must be placed a year in advance.
According to Dr. Gates, “very conservatively, we’re looking at two years from the time a person decides they are going to build to having an operational facility.”
According to him, labor expenses for cage-free operations are roughly three times greater than those for traditional operations. However, there’s no assurance that the price of cage-free eggs will be sufficiently higher than that of regular eggs for farmers to turn a profit. Eggs without cages are typically smaller, which restricts their capacity to
In cage-free operations, a higher bird mortality rate reduces productivity efficiency, and eggs deposited on the floor raise questions about food safety. The respiratory systems of the hens are impacted by dust issues, which also pose a risk to workers.
“It’s a little unsettling that this trend toward cage-free is essentially a regression in terms of energy intensity, carbon footprint, environmental impacts, and, of course, the economics for our producers,” Dr. Gates stated. Therefore, in order to better explain the relative benefits of these systems, we need hard scientific data. I hope that we’ll be seeing more of that very soon.