WattAgNet: Australia’s Hungry Jack’s completes cage-free egg switch

Australian fast food restaurant chain Hungry Jack’s has converted its entire egg supply to cage-free eggs, a move that is being criticized by an Australian egg industry services body.

The Australian chain in February announced that it would convert to a 100-percent cage-free egg supply by the end of 2017, but it achieved that goal well ahead of its planned timeline, as it announced this week on Twitter that it now serves 100-percent cage-free eggs.

Hungry Jack’s, a franchise of Burger King Corporation, has operated in Australia since 1971. Burger King and its sister company Tim Hortons have also pledged to convert to a 100-percent cage-free egg supply at all of its locations in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, citing 2025 as the year the conversion will be completed.

AECL: Hungry Jack’s made a whopping error

The Australian Egg Corporation Limited (AECL), an industry services body that is funded mainly through levies collected under the Egg Industry Service Provision Act of 2002, criticized Hungry Jack’s for responding to customer perceptions about egg production, rather than science-based research.

“The decision demonstrates a misunderstanding of modern cage egg farming systems and the textent to which they impact hen welfare. It also does not reflect the fact that more than half of all Australians still choose to buy cage eggs because they are the most affordable egg,” AECL stated in a press release.

AECL Managing Director James Kellaway said that if Hungry Jack’s had given priority to available scientific evidence, it would not…