McDonald's rejects cage eggs

The country's largest fast-food retailer will stop using cage eggs as of December 2016. Photo / Getty Images

McDonald's New Zealand has announced its restaurants will now longer use eggs from caged hens as of December 2016.

The country's largest fast-food retailer stopped using cage eggs in its Christchurch and Dunedin restaurants in 2012, but animal advocacy group SAFE claims the latest move as a victory for animals, after it applied years of pressure to the company.

McDonald's has also committed to not accepting eggs from the recently introduced and controversial colony cages.

"SAFE is pleased to see McDonald's responding to growing public concern about the treatment of caged hens. Caged hens suffer unimaginable hardship from being kept inside small, cramped cages," says Hans Kriek, executive director of SAFE.

SAFE believes this change in practice marks a "significant breakthrough" in the campaign against factory farming. The new colony cage system is intended to replace battery cages by 2022, but the fact that McDonald's has already stood against that is admirable.

Colony cages are battery cages with small modifications. Each cage contains 60 birds, each of which has just over an A4 piece of paper of space.

"The use of free-range eggs by a low-cost chain such as McDonald's sends a clear message to the government, the industry, and other companies that caged hen farming is no longer acceptable and that the time has come to move away from these cruel systems entirely," says Kriek.

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