Sustainable eggs make good business sense, says McDonald’s executive

Bob Langert, McDonald’s vice president for corporate responsibility, said his company wants to satisfy its customers’ expectations for delivering a safe food supply while assuring the animals involved in the food production are raised in the best possible conditions. However, he also knows that in order for their decisions to have any credibility, it takes a group of people that go beyond restaurant executives.

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Michigan State University researchers found that hens in aviary systems spent most of their afternoon on the floor litter in Coalition for Sustainable Egg Supply research.
Michigan State University researchers found that hens in aviary systems spent most of their afternoon on the floor litter in Coalition for Sustainable Egg Supply research.

Bob Langert, McDonald’s vice president for corporate responsibility, said his company wants to satisfy its customers’ expectations for delivering a safe food supply while assuring the animals involved in the food production are raised in the best possible conditions. However, he also knows that in order for their decisions to have any credibility, it takes a group of people that go beyond restaurant executives.

“We run restaurants. We are not experts in food agriculture. We’re not the people who raise chickens, cows and pigs,” Langert said during the International Food and Agribusiness Management Association’s 23rd Annual World Forum. “You can’t change the industries without involving all the players in the system, so that’s what we’re trying to do.”

McDonald’s has spearheaded the Coalition for a Sustainable Egg Supply, a partnership between business, academic and scientific leaders with an interest in the egg industry. Teaming up to find these solutions makes good business sense, not only for McDonald’s, but for the egg industry as a whole. As the industry takes better care of its chickens and gains more confidence from the public, more people will consume eggs, creating a sustainable environment, Langert said.

Which housing system is best?

Worldwide, most hens are housed in conventional or battery cages, Dr. Joy Mench, the director of the Center for Animal Welfare at University of California-Davis and member of the coalition, told World Forum attendees, but this system has been increasingly criticized because it restricts the behavior of the hens. “We asked ourselves if we are going to change, because it looks like we’re moving in that direction,” said Mench. “But will these changes be sustainable?”

The Coalition for a Sustainable Egg Supply is examining three different types of hen housing: conventional or battery cages, cage-free housing, and enriched colony housing. To study the benefits and shortcomings of each housing system, the coalition has built a facility with all three types of hen housing. In addition to housing 300,000 hens for research purposes, it is supplying eggs commercially. Coalition members provided more than $6 million in research funding for a three-plus-year project.

Areas of evaluation

When battery cages were first established as the standard, they were designed with hen health, egg safety and the economics of production in mind. But there are more factors to look at when it comes to creating an environment for sustainable egg production, Mench said.

The coalition’s studies will look at food safety and quality, worker health and safety, hen health and well-being, environmental impacts, and economics. Mench added that the participants had a good knowledge of the animal welfare and economic factors before beginning the study but knew much less about the other aspects.

Through the study of food safety and quality aspects of the different housing systems, researchers are looking at interior and exterior egg quality as well as egg safety issues such as Salmonella. Scientists are also examining how the different housing systems enable the birds to be vaccinated safely and effectively.

To evaluate the hens’ health and well-being, the group is monitoring hen behavior via video and also looking at broader health and physical conditions such as bone health, disease and mortality. Environmental issues under surveillance include air quality, emissions, energy use, litter accumulation and water conservation efficiency.

For examining the economics for each housing system, input use, farm costs and revenue are being analyzed.
The study is being conducted by a team of animal scientists, veterinarians, agricultural engineers, biomedical engineers, food scientists, economists, physicians and safety specialists.

Putting the findings to use

The goal of the coalition is to attain science-based information for decision-making in the food chain, so the results will be published once the study has been completed, Mench said. Coalition members will get the information first, she added.

She hopes that once the study’s findings are released, other sustainable agriculture projects can follow, using the Coalition for a Sustainable Egg Supply as an example.

“We feel like we have really created a model for how the sustainability research can be conducted by integrating everything into a single project,” she said.

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