Loblaws promised to only source 100% cage-free eggs by 2025, and boasted about this commitment to shareholders for years. But now, Loblaws is breaking its promise, won’t meet this deadline, and refuses to share a timeline for ending this horrific suffering of sensitive hens.
Hidden behind closed barn doors, hens on egg factory farms face some of the most egregious forms of cruelty in the Canadian food system. As revealed by undercover exposés, birds are packed into wire cages so small that many can’t move freely or even spread their wings. Wire-floored battery cages, with little space and no stimulation, is standard practice for the egg industry in Canada. In these cages, each hen suffers immensely, trapped in a tiny space roughly the size of a sheet of paper.
In the cramped and stressful conditions, hens face fractured or broken bones, deformities, and severe feather loss. At one egg farm in BC, hens only had the wire flooring to stand on, their claws were severely overgrown and their skin was burned by the ammonia fumes that hung in the air.
Injured hens can be trampled to death by their cagemates, and eyewitnesses found birds in various stages of decay inside the cages among live hens. Those who survive spend their miserable shortened lives trapped, often surrounded by death, filth, and feces.
As Canada’s largest food retailer, Loblaws is responsible for supporting this cruel and archaic confinement of hens. After immense public pressure in 2016, Loblaws promised to sell only cage-free eggs by 2025, and boasted about this commitment to shareholders for years. But now, Loblaws is breaking its promise, dropping this deadline, and refusing to share a timeline for ending this horrific suffering of sensitive hens.
Thousands of companies around the world are making commitments to go cage-free, and many regions have even passed laws banning these cruel cages. But Canadian grocers lag far behind their peers in the US and Europe. Join us in demanding that Loblaws keeps its promise to go cage-free by 2025.
Hens Can’t Wait!
Removing your support from this cruelty by leaving eggs off your plate is one the best ways to help hens, but cage-free egg commitments will also help reduce the suffering of hens across Canada. Join Animal Justice and send a message demanding that Loblaws keeps its promise to go cage-free by 2025.
Photos: PETA
