Mickey D's in pressure cooker over eggs
Activists are egging on McDonald's to buy its eggs from cage-free suppliers. As the largest egg-buyer in the country, the company is lagging behind other fast food chains that have begun purchasing cage-free eggs. Sarah Gardner reports.
TEXT OF STORY
Bill Radke: Surely you have seen the McDonald's fancy-coffee campaign -- they want to be a Starbucks alternative. Today's Financial Times says McDonalds is taking that fight to Europe, planning to open hundreds of new McCafes on the Continent. What will they say?
Back home, McDonald's annual shareholders meeting is today in Oak Brook, Ill. From the Marketplace Sustainability Desk, Sarah Gardner tells us about a shareholder resolution that would make McDonald's eggs cage-free.
Sarah Gardner: Paul Shapiro of the Humane Society of the United States says Wendy's, Burger King, Hardee's -- they've already started using cage-free eggs, even if it's just a small fraction. So where's Mickey D's?
Paul Shapiro: There's no excuse for McDonald's to continue lagging behind its competition on an issue as important as animal welfare.
Activists are squawking about McDonald's because it's the biggest egg buyer in the country. In 2001, the Golden Arches took the lead by demanding its suppliers give more cage space for hens. Its suppliers didn't like it, but they did it
Fast food analyst R.J. Hottovy says if McDonald's demanded cage-free eggs, many producers would switch.
AR.J. Hottovy: I think certainly it's something that could turn the tide and you see more and more people go to a cage-free stance.
McDonald's is already phasing out "caged" egg McMuffins in Europe. The authorities there will ban crowded hen cages by 2012. But McDonald's says it won't make a decision on doing the same here before it completes a large-scale study on the issue.
I'm Sarah Gardner for Marketplace.
Comments
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From scarborough canada, 05/27/2009
All my friends and family are now
three quarters way to being vegetarian.
How selfish and greedy of mcdonald to
wait to see how it goes in europe
we have stopped going to Mcdonald long
long time ago, because of the meat and
chicken.
From Plano, TX, 05/27/2009
Seems more and more of my friends who aren't even into animal advocacy are buying 'cage-free' eggs and becoming more and more aware of the plight of factory farmed animals and the suffering involved with the intense confinement. I hope and pray McDonalds will stand as an example against such cruelty. Keeping the faith!
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