Yesterday Burger King
announced that its restaurants would transition to cage-free pork and eggs by 2017. The move comes as
Burger King struggles to cope with declining same store sales and its loss of the #2 fast food U.S. sales ranking to Wendy’s. But if you think times are tough for BK executives or franchise owners, animal welfare activists will remind you that chickens and pigs have long faced harsher conditions in the quest to make Burger King’s breakfast sandwiches. Sows on hog farms are usually penned into “gestational crates,” during pregnancy and therefore confined in spaces only as wide as them.
The announcement came as more fast food companies are pledging to source ingredients from more ethical and humane suppliers.
Chipotle’s success, heightened by a
very popular commercial aired during the Grammy Awards
earlier this year, has had a role in nudging more fast food chains like
Krispy Kreme and
Wendy’s to source cage free eggs or stop sourcing pork from suppliers that use gestation crates. Meanwhile other companies, like
McDonald’s, have fought the cage-free trend tooth and nail, though the Golden Arches has promised to
phase out gestational crates.
The pledge to source “cage-free” pork has struck some observers
as odd considering pigs on industrial farms are not kept in contraptions built for birds. But semantics and public relations spin aside, fast food companies are waking up to that fact that customers are becoming more concerned not only about food quality and safety, but how animals are treated before they end up in a a value meal. And as food analyst
Phil Lempert said in an Associated Press interview, they will pay a little more for it. The usual excuse given by companies that reducing animals’ misery will only add to increased business costs is no longer valid--companies will have to absorb those costs or find a way to pass them on to customers who are more willing to pay that premium anyway.
With Burger King’s announcement, look for other companies to scramble to find ways to show that their food is humanely sourced. BK has already slowly increased the percentage of cage free eggs and free range pork at its restaurants, a policy the company first implemented in 2007. So while 2017 seems a long way off, that deadline gives the company’s supply chain time to sort out the details, learn to account for added costs and share best practices with other companies.
With animal welfare among trends including the elimination of
pink slime from menus and the awareness over the sourcing of
palm oil from dubious suppliers, could fast food really become less guilt-free? Furthermore, could those hamburgers, breakfast sandwiches and fries once again actually taste the way the way they meant to and how our parents and grandparents remembered them?
Published earlier today on Triple Pundit.
Photo courtesy Wikipedia (
Specious).
About The Author
Leon Kaye
Leon Kaye is the founder and editor of GreenGoPost.com and its advisory division,
GGP Media.
Contact him to discuss how he can work with your organization or event.
His focus is making the business case for sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR).
He writes for San Francisco-based
Triple Pundit,
Inhabitat and now
The Guardian, for which he writes about corporate responsibility, water, and green building. He has also written for AIA's
Architect Magazine.
Leon works out of Fresno and Silicon Valley, California, and when he has free time, he enjoys hiking, gardening, cooking, weightlifting, and planning his next trip to one of the 60 countries he has visited. He has an MBA from USC's Marshall School of Business and is also a proud graduate of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC) and Cal State-Fresno.
Yesterday Burger King announced that its restaurants would transition to cage-free pork and eggs by 2017. The move comes as Burger King struggles to cope with declining same store sales and its loss of the #2 fast food U.S. sales ranking to Wendy’s. But if you think times are tough for BK executives or franchise owners, animal welfare activists will remind you that chickens and pigs have long faced harsher conditions in the quest to make Burger King’s breakfast sandwiches. Sows on hog farms are usually penned into “gestational crates,” during pregnancy and therefore confined in spaces only as wide as them.
The announcement came as more fast food companies are pledging to source ingredients from more ethical and humane suppliers. Chipotle’s success, heightened by a very popular commercial aired during the Grammy Awards earlier this year, has had a role in nudging more fast food chains like Krispy Kreme and Wendy’s to source cage free eggs or stop sourcing pork from suppliers that use gestation crates. Meanwhile other companies, like McDonald’s, have fought the cage-free trend tooth and nail, though the Golden Arches has promised to phase out gestational crates.
The pledge to source “cage-free” pork has struck some observers as odd considering pigs on industrial farms are not kept in contraptions built for birds. But semantics and public relations spin aside, fast food companies are waking up to that fact that customers are becoming more concerned not only about food quality and safety, but how animals are treated before they end up in a a value meal. And as food analyst Phil Lempert said in an Associated Press interview, they will pay a little more for it. The usual excuse given by companies that reducing animals’ misery will only add to increased business costs is no longer valid--companies will have to absorb those costs or find a way to pass them on to customers who are more willing to pay that premium anyway.
With Burger King’s announcement, look for other companies to scramble to find ways to show that their food is humanely sourced. BK has already slowly increased the percentage of cage free eggs and free range pork at its restaurants, a policy the company first implemented in 2007. So while 2017 seems a long way off, that deadline gives the company’s supply chain time to sort out the details, learn to account for added costs and share best practices with other companies.
With animal welfare among trends including the elimination of pink slime from menus and the awareness over the sourcing of palm oil from dubious suppliers, could fast food really become less guilt-free? Furthermore, could those hamburgers, breakfast sandwiches and fries once again actually taste the way the way they meant to and how our parents and grandparents remembered them?
Published earlier today on Triple Pundit.
Photo courtesy Wikipedia (Specious).
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