Members of the Global Coalition on Animal Welfare are making continued progress on transitioning their egg purchasing to cage-free supplies. Members have indicated that they will achieve their stated targets in the majority of the 190 global markets in which they operate. These achievements will have a significant impact on the welfare outcomes for the 8.3 billion laying hens globally: collectively, GCAW members source over 9 billion eggs every year, equating to the production from around 30 million laying hens.
There are still challenges in securing adequate supplies of cage-free eggs in some regions, notably across Asia and Latin America. In these territories, GCAW members also have some concerns around traceability and consideration for consumer cost pressures. These issues were explored in the 2023 GCAW Cage-Free Eggs Global Landscape Review.
Notwithstanding the supply-side challenges, all GCAW members are taking proactive, targeted approaches to addressing barriers to realising their cage-free egg purchasing ambitions wherever they exist. These include:
- Investing directly into their supply chains to assist with construction and adaptation of laying hen facilities to generate sufficient supply capabilities.
- Dedicating internal resources to increase the frequency of supplier dialogues, in some cases to daily liaison, to share knowledge and make expectations clear.
- Committing to longer term buying agreements to enhance supplier confidence in making necessary investment on-farm and in staff training on higher welfare hen husbandry.
- Reviewing reporting methodologies to provide greater country by country granularity, detailing specific challenges and visibility of next steps to all stakeholders.
- Exploring the role of cage-free egg credit schemes in helping to counter challenges in specific markets.
- Expanding consumer communications to enhance understanding of the benefits of higher welfare egg production and stimulate consumer demand.
The GCAW Secretariat convenes a bimonthly meeting of the GCAW Laying Hens Working Group to facilitate the sharing of progress and challenges among members. These meetings also provide an opportunity to engage with key stakeholders, including, for example, IQC regarding the cage-free egg certification scheme it is implementing in China.
Dr Nathan Williams, GCAW Secretariat, commented, “Securing access to sufficient cage-free eggs is the number one priority for our members who are committed to phasing out any eggs from caged systems.
There remains significant variation in the availability of cage-free eggs globally. In our most recent analysis, the proportion of eggs produced in cage-free systems by country varies from 0% to about 95%. It is estimated that globally, over 84% of laying hens are still housed in caged systems. So, although progress towards cage-free egg production is accelerating in some geographies, there are supply challenges in others that need to be addressed to enable companies to meet their sourcing commitments and fulfil changing stakeholder expectations.
It is clear that a great deal of positive action is being taken at company level to address issues of availability, traceability and consumer pressures. GCAW provides a forum for its members to share experiences and to engage collectively with key stakeholders. The Secretariat intends to support member efforts further by developing a directory of cage-free egg suppliers in the territories that are proving to be the most challenging for them to make significant advances.”
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