It seems a variety of restaurants are following in the footsteps of Panera, Taco Bell, McDonald’sand Starbuckswhen it comes to a new dedication to serving cage-free eggs. The practice turned out to be one of this year’s top trends, and I’m willing to bet even more restaurants will make similar announcements in the coming year.
Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, Peet’s Coffee, and Caribou Coffee, for example, announced this month that cage-free policies will be complete by 2020, according to the Humane Society. Also, Flowers Foods — one of the country’s largest baked goods companies and owner Tastykake brand — announced it’s also switching to exclusively cage-free eggs by 2025.
Vishy Visweswaran of SCA Technologies predicts consumer demand for cage-free eggs will force more restaurants to abandon caged-egg sources.
“As other brands follow the lead of McDonald’s and Taco Bell, which have pledged to go cage-free over a period of years, the supply chain impact will be significant,” he said. “There is insufficient built-up capacity for cage-free eggs in the industry. This will only get worse if we see more bird flu outbreaks like the one from earlier this year.”
