US egg industry faces hard choices amid cage-free rush

While the U.S. egg industry surges toward what looks like a cage-free future, individual egg producers and the organization that represents more than 90 percent of them, the United Egg Producers (UEP), find themselves at a crossroads. Should the organization of the country’s largest egg farmers go all in for cage-free production, or push back against the trend and defend enriched cage housing as an alternative to cage free?  The UEP held a series of six regional meetings across the country in August and the staff of Egg Industry attended meetings held in Atlanta and Des Moines, Iowa, on August 15 and 23, respectively. At those meetings, several egg producers expressed frustration with the disconnect between the marketplace and the cage-free egg purchase pledges made by major retail, food-service and food processing purchasers.