Olive Garden, LongHorn moving to cage-free eggs

Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse and other Darden restaurants will use only cagefree eggs by 2018.

The company updated its food commitments policy this week to include eggs from chickens not raised on factory farms.

“By 2018, 100% of all egg products, both whole and liquid, purchased by Darden will be cagefree,” the company’s website reads.

Along with the egg announcement, Darden is also eliminating the use of pork that uses gestational crates.

The move comes just a week after Darden was criticized by environmental activist group Friends of the Earth, which called on the Orlando-based restaurant chain to cut the animal and dairy products it uses.

Darden has been working on the new program for some time with suppliers, said company spokesman Rich Jeffers.

Humane Society of the United States supported Darden’s move.

“The Humane Society of the United States applauds Darden for getting chickens out of cages, and for doing it quicker than nearly any other company,” said Matthew Prescott, senior director of food policy at the Humane Society of the United States in an email.

“This is a good move for the company, its customers and of course chickens.”

Gestation crates are the narrow metal stalls female breeding pigs are placed in during Darden has already committed to cut unnecessary antibiotics from its protein supply chain by 2016.

A handful of other restaurant chains and grocers have also pledged to drop eggs that come from factory farms, where chickens are often raised in crates.

Chick fil-A, Taco Bell and Burger King have said they will transition to only using cagefree eggs over the next few years, as have Aldi, Target, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and The Fresh Market.