General Mills says it’s making big step toward cage-free eggs
MINNEAPOLIS — Food-maker General Mills announced a major move toward cage-free eggs Tuesday as part of an updated animal welfare policy that now extends throughout its global supply chain.
The Golden Valley, Minn.-based company committed itself to 100 percent cage-free eggs for its U.S. operations, a move several other large companies also have taken recently. The company did not set a deadline but said it will work with its suppliers to determine a “reasonable timeline,” given the disruption that bird flu has caused to the U.S. egg supply.
Eggs are an important ingredient in many products for General Mills, whose brands include Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, Progresso soups, Yoplait yogurt and Hamburger Helper. Some of its products, such as Haagen-Dazs ice cream made in Europe, already go beyond cage-free and use only free-range eggs.
“General Mills’ announcement is a major victory to improve the lives of farm animals,” said Josh Balk, senior director of food policy for the Humane Soci- ety of the United States, which worked with the company to develop the policy. For such a large food company to make the switch “is another indicator that the future of egg production in this country has to be cage-free.”
The new policy is based on a set of principles developed by the British government. They include freedom from hunger, thirst and malnutrition; freedom from pain, injury and disease, and freedom from fear.
While General Mills was already applying those principles with its dairy suppliers, the new policy extends them to all animals in its worldwide supply chain, said Steve Peterson, the director of sustainable sourcing. The policy encourages but does not require dairy suppliers to move away from de-horning milk cows. It also encourages the elimination of tight confinement for pregnant sows by 2017 and pain relief for and the potential elimination of castration and tail docking for piglets.