McDonald’s to fully switch to cage-free eggs

Oak Brook, Ill. – McDonald’s Canadian and U.S. consumers can now consume eggs at the chain and not worry about how those eggs were collected.

The company announced that it will fully switch to cage-free eggs for its nearly 16,000 restaurants in North America over the next 10 years.

Each year the company buys 120 million eggs in Canada and two billion eggs in the U.S. The eggs are used in its breakfast menu, which includes the Egg McMuffin and Egg White Delight.

Since 2011, the company began moving away from caged birds and eggs in the U.S. , purchasing about 13 million cage-free eggs.

In 2000, McDonald’s USA was the first foodservice company to adopt a standard for hen housing systems, which provided more space per bird than the industry standard.

In 2010, the company initiated research with the Coalition for a Sustainable Egg Supply to better understand the impact of various hen housing systems on animal health and welfare, the environment, worker health, food safety and food affordability.

This research provided important insights into the trade-offs of various housing systems for the company to make informed sourcing decisions.

Today’s news follows other actions announced this year by McDonald’s USA to source only chicken raised without antibiotics important to human medicine by 2017 and to offer milk jugs of low-fat white milk and fat-free chocolate milk from cows that have not been treated with rbST, an artificial growth hormone.