In a significant win for animals welfare, all major New Zealand supermarkets will stop selling caged eggs by 2027. After Countdown committed to going cage-free earlier this year, Foodstuffs, the company that owns Pak’nSave, Four Square and New World has announced it will also phase out caged eggs.
The change affects 463 stores throughout New Zealand and will benefit the lives of over one million hens.
Commenting on the decision, Foodstuffs’ managing director Steve Anderson said they are “committed to working with our suppliers toward our goal to be 100 per cent cage free for packaged eggs by the end of 2027.” The decade-long phasing-out period would allow farmers to amend their farming methods and facilities. “We believe 10 years is a reasonable timeframe,” Anderson stated.
Mandy Carter of animal rights organisation SAFE, which campaigned for free range eggs at the start of 2017, said that “approximately 1.25 million hens will be freed from a life confined in cages” as a result of the change.
