Trader Joe's will only sell cage-free eggs by the year 2025, the company, one of the largest grocers in the nation, announced on its website last Friday.
Read More: Cage-Free Chicken Before the Egg
Eleven years ago, Trader Joe’s announced it would take steps to ensure its store-brand eggs only came from cage-free hens. Now the company is revising that plan and says all the eggs it sells will be cage-free by 2025.
In an announcement to customers, the company said that while 62 percent of the eggs it sells currently come from cage-free sources, it wants that number to be 100 percent in nine years.
Trader Joe's has more than 400 stores across the country. As part of its plan, the grocery chain will carry only cage-free eggs at its stores in the western U.S. — including California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado — by 2020. It then plans to have all eggs at all stores across the U.S. sourced from cage-free suppliers by 2025.
“If market conditions allow us to accomplish these goals earlier, while still providing our customers outstanding value, we will do so,” the company said in a statement.
Trader Joe's isn't the only company going cage-free. McDonald's and Taco Bell are also transitioning to cage-free eggs for their breakfast menu items. The United Egg Producers estimates that organic and cage-free eggs account for a little over 8 percent of egg production in the United States.