Sodexo to Switch to Cage-free Liquid Eggs

By Candace Mitchell

Ramapo College’s food service provider, Sodexo, recently announced that it will be sourcing all of its liquid eggs from cage-free hens by 2020, following a cruelty campaign. 

“We’ve been working on this for several years now and we have worked with the Humane Society previously on our sourcing of shelled eggs from cage-free eggs,” Enrico Dinges, senior manager of media relations and corporate communications for Sodexo, told The Ramapo News. “This is just a continuation of that work, and trying to work with the supply chain to identify when it would be feasible for us to be able to source all of our egg offerings from cage-free eggs.”

Sodexo will eliminate the use of veal crates from its supply chain by 2017 and will buy all of its liquid eggs from cage-free systems by the end of 2020, according to a press release from Sodexo. They currently obtain about 20 million pounds of liquid eggs a year from 750,000 egg-laying hens.

The announcement follows a cruelty campaign launched by the Humane League, a national farmed animal advocacy organization that started a petition on change.org, which received 130,714 signatures. The petition called for Sodexo to stop purchasing liquid eggs from battery cage farms.

The change to cage-free eggs was also supported by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).

“By committing to source all egg products exclusively from cage-free hens, Sodexo has built on an already strong set of animal welfare policies, with this latest pledge affecting the removal of 750,000 hens annually from extreme confinement in battery cage systems,” said Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.