Jack in the Box Says ‘No’ to Birds in the Cage
Today, we’re pleased to announce that Jack in the Box has laid out a timeline for switching to 100 percent cage-free eggs. The nearly 3,000 Jack in the Box locations nationwide each include an extensive breakfast menu, including more than a dozen items with eggs. The company also owns Qdoba Mexican Eats, which has nearly 700 locations and a breakfast menu. The HSUS welcomes the company’s commitment to doing good and to making progress on animal welfare.
The company announced in its updated animal welfare report: “In response to evolving research on cage-free housing environments, and to consumers’ changing expectations and preferences, we have informed our egg suppliers of our expectation that they transition the majority of our egg supply to cage-free by 2020, and to fully transition to cage-free eggs by 2025.”
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Five to 10 years is a long time for chickens to remain in cages, but Jack in the Box's announcement is still great progress, and will hasten the day when our nation’s food supply is no longer linked to the extreme confinement of animals. (Photo by David Paul Morris/For The HSUS)
This is the year that the nation decided to shed battery cages in favor of cage-free production. Just last week, Taco Bell announced that it’ll switch all 130 million eggs it uses each year to cage-free by the end of 2016. And in 2015 alone, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Compass Group, Aramark, Sodexo, Kellogg’s, Panera Bread, Unilever, TGI Fridays, and others have also set in motion the process of eliminating eggs from caged hens from their supply chain.
While, of course, five to 10 years is a long time for chickens to remain in cages, this is still great progress. And while cage-free, of course, does not solve all of the animal welfare problems in egg production, Jack in the Box’s announcement represents a major step forward. It’ll hasten the day when our nation’s food supply is no longer linked to extreme confinement, improve food safety for millions of people, and hopefully lead even more companies to follow the path toward a more humane society.
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