San Francisco Soup Company has become the largest Bay Area restaurant company to switch all of its eggs to cage-free. The Humane Society of the United States praised the company for its forward-thinking new policy, which is a positive way to improve animal welfare.
San Francisco Soup Company is replacing battery cage eggs with cage-free eggs at all its 16 locations in San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland and East Palo Alto. The company uses more than 250,000 eggs each year.
Following Proposition 2's landslide passage nearly a year ago, many Bay Area restaurants have worked with The HSUS to end their use of eggs from caged hens. Among them are Triptych Restaurant, Pacific Catch, Incanto, Mission Pie, Cliff House and Kuleto's.
Steve Sarver, CEO of San Francisco Soup Company, said, "We're delighted with our new policy. Simply by switching our eggs to cage-free, we can better meet the desires of Californians, most of whom voted to prohibit the confinement of hens in cages."
"Especially given Prop 2's landslide 72.4 percent passage in San Francisco, it couldn't be a better time to switch away from hens crammed into tiny cages," stated Paul Shapiro, senior director of The HSUS' factory farming campaign. "Californians agreed in a landslide vote that farm animals ought to be able to turn around and extend their limbs, and corporate policies moving away from battery cage eggs are an important part of ensuring that modest step."
Bay Area universities like San Francisco State University, University of San Francisco and UC Berkeley use cage-free eggs in their cafeterias. Local retailers like Rainbow Grocery, Berkeley Bowl and Andronico's do not sell eggs from caged hens.
Facts
- U.S. factory farms confine about 280 million hens in barren battery cages so small, they can't even spread their wings. Each bird has less space than a single sheet of paper on which to live for more than a year before she's slaughtered.
- Cage-free hens generally have two to three times more space per bird than caged hens. Cage-free hens may not be able to go outside and may have parts of their beaks cut off, but they can walk, spread their wings, and lay their eggs in nests—all behaviors permanently denied to hens crammed into battery cages.
- In a landslide vote last year, Californians enacted Proposition 2, the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act—a new law making it a criminal offense (with a phase-out period) to confine hens in battery cages, pigs in gestation crates and calves in veal crates.
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The Humane Society of the United States is the nation's largest animal protection organization — backed by 11 million Americans, or one of every 28. For more than a half-century, The HSUS has been fighting for the protection of all animals through advocacy, education and hands-on programs. Celebrating animals and confronting cruelty — On the web at humanesociety.org.
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