Caged eggs will remain on supermarket shelves until 2030 as supply challenges and cost-of-living pressures continue.
Coles, Woolworths and Aldi promised to phase out or ban eggs from battery cage farms this year because of animal welfare concerns.
In the past 18 months bird flu outbreaks have caused disruptions to egg supplies, leaving supermarket shelves empty, pushing up prices and forcing purchasing limits to be placed on the popular protein.
“Due to the significant impact of recent avian influenza outbreaks in Australia, we have made the decision to pause the transition to cage-free for branded shell eggs,” a Coles spokesperson said.
“This step is necessary to help the industry recover and ultimately ensure a stable supply for our customers.
“We take the welfare of animals very seriously and are committed to maintaining more than 85 per cent cage-free branded shell eggs and achieving our exit of caged eggs in the long-term.
“We have decided to extend the cage-free target deadline for branded shell eggs to 2030.”
State and federal governments have committed to a total ban on caged egg farming by 2036.
Up to 50,000 chickens can be housed in sheds on chicken farms. (ABC News: Kyle Harley)
Animal welfare debate
The caged egg industry has long argued for the necessity of the availability of the product in supermarkets in order to keep prices down and prevent supply disruptions.
“The major supermarkets – Coles, in this case – absolutely know that staple products like eggs are major commodity items,” Werribee caged egg producer Danyel Cucinotta said.
“They need eggs in store for the average consumer to come in and purchase whatever else they need.
“The moment you take that away, they end up losing out on their bottom line across the whole grocery basket.”
Danyel Cucinotta, with Brian Ahmed, says the decision by Coles to pause the ban shows the supermarket is more focused on profits than animal welfare. (ABC News: Kyle Harley)
Ms Cucinotta does not believe the switch to free-range eggs is based on animal welfare concerns.
“It’s absolute nonsense — it’s not an animal welfare debate, it’s a profitability debate,” she said.
“They want to control the market.
“If this was about animal welfare, they would have continued with the phase-out, but they haven’t.
“Cages are animal welfare-friendly. They’re not for everyone. We understand that from a consumer choice perspective not everybody wants to buy them.
“But we’re in a cost-of-living crisis and [Coles] knows if they remove the more affordable eggs right now, that’s problematic to their bottom line — that’s all they care about.”
In the past year caged eggs have accounted for 2 per cent of Coles’s sales volume.
State and federal governments have committed to a total ban on caged egg farming by 2036. (ABC Rural: Brett Worthington)
Keeping costs down
University of New South Wales consumer behaviour expert Nitika Garg expects a mixed response from shoppers.
“Some will not be happy with that, especially those who care about animal cruelty and being ethical in their food sources,” she said.
“But there are consumers who just look at prices, so for them it’s good news, especially given the cost-of-living crisis.
“Given the context of the bird flu and the industry supply chain being disrupted, Coles has the opportunity to get consumers on side.”
Nitika Garg says responses from consumers regarding the Coles decision are likely to vary. (Supplied: Freepik/licence)
Woolworths did not respond to the ABC when asked about the timeline of its caged egg phase-out, but Ms Garg expects it will follow Coles’s lead.
“These two are pretty much lockstep for the most part, even though they have different target segments,” she said.
“Ultimately they are competing with each other. It’s a duopoly — I’d expect Woolies to mimic this.
“But Aldi? You never know. It does its own thing and its supply chain is different.”
