Business
Cheap Eggs Are Ruining the Cage-Free Movement
- Demand for products from cage-free flocks may lag for years
- Oversupply has pummeled the industry: ‘It’s been bad’
Eggs from hens that aren’t so cooped up taste better by some accounts.
Photographer: Brendon Thorne/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The great American egg glut keeps claiming victims, among them millions of hens that won’t be moving anytime soon into lodgings spacious enough for what they lay to be called “cage free.”
This was supposed to be a golden-goose designation, after the likes of McDonald’s Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. pledged to switch to eggs from birds able to actually spread their wings. Farmers stepped up to provide cage-free products, but buyers haven’t materialized in the anticipated droves, or anything close.