Whether you’re eating them scrambled, boiled or fried, or cooking with them in cakes or savoury food, eggs are a common kitchen staple. Given their ubiquity, it can also be hard to discern which eggs are used where, and for what, particularly when there’s no legal requirement to label origin as part of a wider ingredients list.
Caged and Barn
Starting at the lowest welfare end of the spectrum there are enriched caged eggs, where the hens live in a cage without access to the outside or often natural light. There has been a move away from caged eggs – several supermarkets such as Waitrose, Sainsburys and Morrisons are already cage free and the other major retailers are committed to this by 2025 – but the fear is that these farms will instead move to barn eggs. In barn systems, hens are also kept completely indoors, and while they aren’t kept in cages, they are usually living in large flocks and cramped conditions.
The British Lion Quality logo means little in terms of animal welfare – around 90% of eggs are stamped with the mark, including from caged hens. What it does tell you is that the hens that have laid it have been vaccinated against salmonella. The RSPCA Assured stamp guarantees that the eggs are cage-free, but it’s important to look closely as the label covers barn eggs as well as free-range and organic.
Truly free-range?
When we hear the words ‘free-range’, we picture hens pecking around in a field. Whilst this is true of some free-range eggs, this is sadly not the reality for all. While the hens must have access to the outdoors (4m2 per bird of pasture), the minimum access is one ‘pop-hole’ per 600 hens, so the reality is that many will never venture outdoors. The hens can also live in flocks of up to 16,000 birds with up to 9 hens per square metre inside the barn.
There are obviously many free-range farms that operate well above the minimum requirements and the hens have freer access to the outdoors, but the challenge comes in knowing which is which. Shopping in a supermarket, it’s difficult to find out the provenance or welfare of free-range eggs. There’s a lot of clever branding out there – the Happy Egg brand is actually owned by Noble Foods, the UK’s largest egg producer – who are at the heart of pollution issues in the River Wye stemming from ‘free-range’ egg farms. Not so happy, then.
If you are buying free-range, it’s best to do so directly from a local honesty box, farm or through a retailer or veg box scheme who is transparent about their supply chain and has done due diligence on their producer. Many farms raise eggs as part of their wider farming business, such as Tom Green from Round The Field in West Berkshire who has 136 laying hens in addition to his 2000 square metre market garden. He moves his hens daily around three hectares of permanent meadow pasture in an ‘egg-mobile’ mobile barn. “My eggs aren’t certified organic as my mobile setup doesn’t fit with the organic certification specification, and my customers are content with the way I produce my eggs, so there is no financial benefit in a small operation like this.”
Organic
With organic eggs, there are a number of key elements sewn into the standards. The flock size is smaller, limited to 3000 birds, and the outdoor space is much larger at 10 square metres per bird. The access is one of the biggest points though, with organic birds required to have continuous and easy daytime access – this is a minimum of 4m of pop holes per 100m2 of housing – and they must have access from 12 weeks old.
A Soil Association spokesperson said: “Choosing organic eggs over non-organic provides reassurance that the birds enjoy a better life – they are truly free range, in smaller flocks with more space and easy access to an outdoor range. They are not subject to beak trimming and the routine use of antibiotics is banned as is GM crops used in their feed. Outdoor foraging also means that organic chickens get to eat a variety of plants, grubs and insects which adds variety to their diet and helps keep them healthy.”
Eggs can also fit within a wider mixed farming system. Mike Mallet runs 3000 hens in small flocks in Suffolk in a pasture-based system where the sheds are moved every three weeks onto fresh pasture. “We try as much as possible to have a closed loop farming system; we are firstly a cereal producer for our mill, and the outgrades and waste go to the birds,” Mike explains; “A diverse rotation includes legumes such as beans, which are fed to the birds, and the manure from the birds is then composted and used to feed the horticultural unit.”
Other kinds of eggs
Duck eggs and quail eggs are fairly easy to find, commonly in farm shops, delis and in roadside stalls (especially duck eggs), and even in some larger supermarkets. The biggest challenge is the lack of specific regulation (there is a voluntary Duck Assurance Scheme) , so while many live a free-range and outdoor life, it’s worth checking the welfare standards of any eggs you buy as many quail also live in caged or barn systems.
Diet
It is common for hens (and ducks and quail) to be fed on soya based feed. It’s a cheap source of protein, which helps boost production when mixed with grain in their feed. However, 80 per cent of soybeans end up in livestock feed – which includes hens, quails and ducks – and soya production is a key factor in deforestation in areas like South America, as well as the soya itself often being genetically modified.
Under organic standards, the hens must be fed a GM-free diet, but soya based feed is still common. There is a move from many producers to switch to a soya free feed system, including sprouted seeds, and using a by-product of the grain industry. Mike Mallet stopped using soy over two years ago; a place that took him several years to get to, feeding a combination of locally grown cereals and legumes, and producers are exploring alternatives such as farmed insects and sprouted seeds.
Male chicks
The hens raised by the egg industry for laying are a different breed to birds raised for meat. This raises the question of what happens to all the male chicks, and the reality is that once the chicks hatch, they are sexed and the male chicks are killed. This is commonplace across large commercial egg farms, though small operations might have different practices and raise duel breed birds where the males can also be raised for meat.
There is a technological solution where eggs are sexed part of the way through incubation, and this is commonly used technology in some European countries. However, retailers and producers in the UK have been resistant to bringing the technology to the UK, and there is only one distributor of chicks using this technology in the UK.
A big difference you can make around this practice is to buy from a farm where the hens have a longer life, as this means less replacement chicks are needed. In many farms the hen is culled after around 18 months when their egg production drops, but small producers often keep their hens for a lot longer, helping reduce the impact of this practice.
As with all foods within our complex systems, the best thing you can do as a consumer, is ask the questions and if you don’t get the answers you want, shop elsewhere.
This feature is part of our new WL Sustainable Food Series, by Steph Wetherell, which includes guides on fruit, veg, bread, meat, and much more, over the coming weeks.
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