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Published 07/03/2017
Carrefour Italy has publicly joined the cage-free movement with their recent announcement to no longer sell eggs from caged hens in all their Italian outlets, which include Market, Express, Iper, DocksMarket and GrossIper.
Their cage-free commitment covers their own-brand shell eggs – which are already in line with their cage-free policy – as well other branded eggs sold in all their Italian stores, which will be cage-free by the end of 2019.
Their commitment follows years of work by Compassion and other NGOs to secure cage-free policies and transparency from food companies.
Compassion welcomes this move which will significantly improve the lives of thousands of laying hens in their supply chain, and commends their transparency surrounding potential issues with their franchisees, who have a certain degree of autonomy over the type of products they sell which can make it challenging to impose the same cage-free policy across a retailer’s entire network.
Carrefour said: "Although permitted by law, the use of cages for laying hens is not considered by Carrefour to be a system capable of guaranteeing a good quality of life for the birds; limited space, movement restraint and wire floors do not allow the hens to move around and express their natural behaviours."
Elisa Bianco, Food Business Manager in Italy, said: "We congratulate Carrefour Italy on their important decision to move to cage-free eggs across their entire business. They join a long line of food companies that have recently made similar cage-free commitments across the globe to meet the growing consumer demand for cage-free eggs.”
Companies that move to cage-free production systems may be eligible for a Good Egg Award from Compassion – find out more here.
