Burgerville Becomes the First Restaurant Chain to Renounce Battery Cage Eggs |
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January 17, 2007
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Burgerville, a 39-restaurant chain with locations throughout Oregon and Southwest Washington, has become the first restaurant chain to refuse to carry battery cage eggs.
After working with The HSUS, Burgerville announced in January 2007 that it is ending the use of eggs from hens confined in battery cages in all of its restaurants—improving the lives of thousands of birds. The chain uses approximately 600,000 eggs each year.
"Burgerville has a strong commitment to sustainability and social responsibility," Tom Mears, CEO of Burgerville, said. "Switching to an exclusively cage-free egg policy is a direct way for our company to improve the lives of animals."
Burgerville joins a growing movement away from battery cage cruelty. More than 100 schools across the country have enacted policies to eliminate or greatly reduce their use of eggs from caged hens. In Oregon, Portland's JoPa restaurant, Cup and Saucer Café and Hillsboro's JoPa Café have also ended the use of cage eggs. Retailers including Whole Foods, Wild Oats and Trader Joe's, and corporations such as AOL and Google have ended or decreased their use of cage eggs. And companies like Ben & Jerry's and Bon Appetit, a major foodservice provider, are phasing out the use of cage eggs.
"The Humane Society of the United States commends Burgerville's leadership in helping prevent one of the worst factory farm abuses," stated Paul Shapiro, Factory Farming Campaign director for The HSUS. "Burgerville is setting a positive example for other socially responsible restaurant chains to follow."
U.S. factory farms confine nearly 300 million hens in barren, wire battery cages that are so small, the birds can't perform many important behaviors, including nesting, foraging, perching, dust bathing, walking and spreading their wings. Each bird has less space than a single sheet of paper on which to live, leading to a lifetime of suffering.
See the Video
Battery-Cage Eggs
Related Links
The HSUS's Campaign to Ban Battery Cages
Campaign Victory! Ben and Jerry's Adopts A Cage-Free Egg Policy
Campaign Victory: Trader Joe's Goes Cage-Free with Its Brand Eggs
Wild Oats and Whole Foods Sow Compassion with Cage-Free Egg Policies
