Building a meaningful cage-free egg policy

Taking the time to evaluate key components will ensure your company develops an effective and impactful cage-free egg policy. Whether your company procures whole shell eggs (typically for retailers), egg products like liquid and boiled eggs, or egg ingredients (used in baked goods, for example) are all scopes of supply that should be evaluated before publicly publishing a cage-free commitment.

A meaningful cage-free egg commitment should:

Prohibit caged systems from a company’s entire supply chain
Including shell eggs, egg products, and egg ingredients
If not a full transition, clarify what products are covered under the commitment
Be publicly available (i.e., on your company’s website, ESG/CSR reporting, etc.) with a meaningful timeline in place
Feature annual progress towards full implementation of the commitment⁵

We encourage companies to commit to fully supplying cage-free eggs across their entire supply chains, including products and ingredients. For retail companies, this includes both own-brand and branded eggs.

To inspire meaningful change, ambitious timelines should be set to fully meet this commitment. This would ideally be no more than five years from the initial adoption of the commitment. However, we understand that achieving a full supply transition may be challenging within this time frame and encourage developing a roadmap to support your timeline and yearly goals.

Roadmaps

To ensure successful implementation of a company’s commitment, CIWF encourages companies to establish annual reporting benchmarks to reach 100% compliance, better known as a roadmap. With roadmaps, companies outline and maintain a plan toward meeting their animal welfare commitments. Roadmaps provide accountability, a structured approach to compliance, and clear goals for responsible procurement efforts. It also helps align the entire company – including its staff and/or shareholders – toward a common goal.

Note: If your company is at risk of missing its deadline, transparency is essential. Re-establishing your cage-free implementation plan with a clear roadmap can help align your team and shareholders, ensuring revised targets are met.

Example of meaningful cage-free commitments and roadmaps:

We are committed to fully transitioning our egg supply to cage-free shell eggs by 2029, and our sourcing of egg products and ingredient eggs by 2030. To ensure full transparency, we will report progress on these targets in our annual responsibility reports. As of 2024: our shell egg supply was 58% cage-free, and our egg products and ingredients were 34% cage-free. We will work to increase our supply of cage-free eggs by 10-20% annually to meet our target deadlines.

If your company would like assistance in creating or strengthening its cage-free egg sourcing commitment, or help evaluating and mapping your company's supply chain, please contact the Food Business team.

Cage-Free Egg Policy