Analysis: The end of the cage?

After years of discussion over cage-free egg commitments, the pivotal year of 2025 has finally arrived. Michael Barker assesses the industry’s readiness

The race is nearing its finish line. With less than 12 months left for supermarkets to meet their voluntary commitments to only sell eggs from non-caged hens, there has been considerable jostling for position as customers look to ensure supply matches demand.

The UK is not alone in making huge changes on welfare grounds, often driven by pressure from animal groups or as part of retailer commitments. Across Europe, cage bans are already in place in Luxembourg, Switzerland and Austria, with bans to be introduced in Germany by 2026, Czechia by 2027 and Slovakia by 2030.

It’s been a decade since British supermarkets agreed to stop selling eggs from caged hens by 2025, and there have been plenty of declarations of progress in that time. But as the milestone year finally dawns, how far along the path to full transition to cage-free is the UK, and how likely is it that retailers will meet all of their commitments?

The current situation

Aldi announced this summer that it had met its 100% cage-free pledge more than a year ahead of schedule, joining the likes of Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and M&S in completing the switch. Of the others, a British Hen Welfare Trust (BHWT) update in November stated that Tesco, Lidl and Asda are all still committed to being cage-free in both shell eggs and ingredients by 2025.

The industry is undoubtedly far along the path to full conversion. New figures from Defra show that production of barn eggs more than doubled between 2022 and 2023 to 121 million dozen (see box), while enriched cage production has almost halved over the past five years to 213 million dozen. Free range comfortably makes up the biggest chunk of production today, at 555 million dozen.

There is a huge amount of scrutiny on retailers and their ability to meet their pledges. Having said it would only stock eggs from free-range farms by the end of 2024, in October 2023 Lidl seemed to move the goalposts by later stating it would source from a new UK facility, to be run by Griffiths Family Farms, along the Dutch Kipster model that claims to produce higher-welfare and more environmentally friendly eggs.

Morrisons, which was an earlier adopter of cage-free shell eggs when it switched to 100% free range in 2022, says it will also be 100% cage-free in its ingredients and processing by 2025. However, one well-placed egg industry source questioned whether the retailer’s early move actually ended up making life more difficult for itself. “Morrisons went really quickly, and anyone can look at their data and see they have struggled since they went free-range only,” he told Poultry Business. “I get the principle behind it, but we have a nation to feed. We’ve only got so much land and it’s really hard to get planning permission. So all that will happen is we’ve got more demand in the market than the UK can meet and we’ll end up with more imports.”

Echoing fears over rising imports, another senior industry source criticised animal rights activists for pushing an agenda that has forced the industry to move faster than was ideal. “Aggressive terrorist-type activity by animal rights campaigners, operating with no consequences, means the truth gets supressed,” he says. “A lot of what is happening has no basis in science, and comes at a time when bird flu is endemic globally. There is no logical reason why we should import food that is legal to produce here. Otherwise we will end up reducing egg consumption and removing a nutritious, valuable protein from the UK diet.”

An unbalanced proposition?

Concern over how to feed lower-income consumers in particular is a theme that several industry figures contacted for this article wanted to highlight. “You can’t turn back the clock and what’s done is done,” says one, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Everybody made their cage-free commitments, but ultimately there are people who need to be fed, are struggling to eat every day, and need cheap animal protein – of which egg is the best. Those people weren’t thinking about lobbying to save caged colony hens. But nobody thought about asking them if they would be able to afford free range. It’s a bit of a shame really.”

Adding that shoppers should be at the heart of every decision, the source pointed out that 20% of consumers always buy on price and would have stuck with colony eggs. “So I’m not sure it’s what every consumer wanted,” he added. “Colony is a great system, but so is barn, and we’ll see who stays with that.”

The issue around price is a live one, particularly as the cost of egg production is demonstrably rising. Official government figures show that farmgate egg prices were an average of 146p per dozen in the third quarter of 2024, up 5.4% on the same period a year ago. In 2023 – the last full year for which figures are available – the average farmgate egg price rose an eye-watering 35.4%, with enriched cage egg prices up 20.4p to 95.8p, barn up 20.5p to 108.9p, free-range soaring 42.3p to 146.4p, and organic rising 36.9p to 229.6p.

Speaking to The Grocer this summer, former BFREPA boss Robert Gooch said a lack of retail contract commitments to encourage producers to invest in barn production meant January 2025 was an unrealistic target for everyone to complete the switchover. He suggested some retailers may look for workarounds, such as selling branded caged eggs.

Away from retail, there are also fears that once the big supermarkets completely stop selling caged product, those eggs will flood the wholesale markets and end up in the manufacturing or foodservice sectors, particularly as there are still plenty of producers whose units are unable to be converted.

How is 2025 shaping up?

In a bid to hold food companies to account, Compassion in World Farming has been running a publicly visible EggTrack tool to show how businesses are faring. The encouraging news is that, of 40 companies reporting, nearly half (19) are described as ‘leaders’ that are already cage-free, in what is a list of big names that includes the likes of Burger King, Compass, Greggs, M&S, McDonald’s, Sainsbury’s, The Co-op and Waitrose. Listed as being on track to reach 100% by 2025 are seven further companies – Bakkavor, Booker, LJ Fairburn, Noble Foods, Tesco, The Big Table and Whitbread.

Thereafter, things get very interesting. CIWF spotlights 11 companies that are ‘at risk’ of missing the deadline due to having made less than an 80% transition on one or both shell and ingredient egg categories (or are not reporting or haven’t committed to both categories), among them Asda, Iceland, Lidl and Morrisons. Finally, three companies – Greene King, One Stop and Spar UK – are defined as ‘laggards’. These are companies that are either not reporting or have fallen behind on their commitments.

In praise of the UK’s efforts so far, CIWF’s analysis puts this country well ahead of other spotlighted EU countries when it comes to the switchover to cage free, with 77% of the egg market having already transitioned. By contrast France (70%), Italy (66%), Spain (33%) and Poland (30%) have varying degrees of ground to make up.

Despite these signs of progress, CIWF and other animal welfare groups are continuing to push for legislation to support the change to cage-free. In late November, CIWF wrote a letter – backed by food companies including the likes of Waitrose, Greggs, Co-op, M&S and Morrisons – to Defra secretary of state Steve Reed supporting a move to ban the installation of new cage systems immediately and phase out all existing cage systems for egg-laying hens by the end of the current Parliament. The charity also referenced a poll it commissioned claiming that 67% of consumers would be happy to pay the estimated 6p more on their weekly shop for all UK hens to be cage free.

“It’s clear that the public and industry are in support of a ban on the use of cages for egg-laying hens, but the government is lagging behind,” says Anthony Field, head of CIWF UK. “They need to act by implementing an immediate ban on the installation of new caged systems and a phase out of existing cage systems for egg-laying hens by 2028.”

As 2025 finally rolls into sight, all eyes will be on which businesses fulfil their commitments, and there will be plenty of scrutiny on any that don’t.

All change in UK egg production

Government figures illustrate the steady decline in enriched cage eggs and the huge rise in barn production over the past five years.

Annual UK packing station intake by egg production method (figures in million dozens). Source: Defra