BJ’s Wholesale Club joined rival Costco Wholesale by recently announcing that it will transition to offering for sale only eggs produced by cage-free hens. I am a proponent of consumer choice and I never had a problem with retailers offering cage-free, free-range, pasture-raised and nutritionally enhanced eggs alongside eggs produced by cage-housed hens. I have always purchased eggs from cage-housed hens, but if someone else wants to pay more for some other type of egg, that was just fine with me.
Unfortunately, activist groups don’t want consumers to have choice; want to dictate what we eat. The moves by Costco and BJ’s are not about retailers providing consumer choice. They are the result of a vocal minority determining what everyone else will have the opportunity to buy. It seems that providing consumers choice upsets this minority group of consumers. Well, taking away choice is something I won’t stand for, and I am done shopping at BJ’s.
My family has shopped at BJ’s ever since they built a store in our area at least 10 years ago. We buy all sorts of things there including clothes, but I think I have only bought eggs there a couple of times, because I generally don’t need three or five dozen eggs when I go to the store.
Sam’s Club, a competitor of Costco and BJ’s, moved into our area just a few years ago, and they will now get my business. I’ll still buy eggs when I visit the grocery store, but I don’t want to support a warehouse club that won’t provide choice when it comes to eggs.
I don’t eat out that often, so the restaurant chain cage-free pledges haven’t had much impact on me, yet. But I cook eggs for breakfast every morning and I hope some smart retailer will respect my choice.
