| Background: In response to the public’s growing awareness of animal cruelty in the egg industry, United Egg Producers, the industry’s primary trade group, created the "Animal Care Certified" logo in 2000. Today over 80% of eggs found in supermarkets bare this deceptive logo. The logo is designed to deceive shoppers that the eggs in the carton were "humanely" produced.
Recent investigations by Compassion Over Killing (Washington DC) and Mercy For Animals (Columbus, Ohio) show the true hell the hens live in.
Two years ago, Compassion Over Killing (COK) petitioned the Better Business Bureau charging United Egg Producers with false advertising. While the bureau has no enforcement authority, it ruled in COK’s favor that the logo is deceptive. The case has since been referred to the Federal Trade Commission, whose decision is awaited. Meanwhile, on February 15, 2005, COK and four egg consumers filed a lawsuit against Giant Foods in Landover, Maryland, Brookville Supermarket in Washington, DC, and Lehman’s Egg Service, Inc. in Pennsylvania, charging that the "Animal Care Certified" (AAC) logo stamped on egg cartons deceives shoppers with a false message of humane animal care. (For full information visit www.Cok.net).
Mercy For Animals’ Investigates Ohio Fresh Eggs, An "Animal Care Certified" Factory Farm
In November 2004, Mercy For Animals (MFA) investigators went behind the closed doors of Ohio Fresh Eggs, formerly Buckeye Egg Farm, in Croton, Ohio. They emerged with shocking video and photos that revealed the typical conditions inside an "Animal Care Certified" facility:
- Hens with broken, damaged, and feces-covered feathers packed into battery cages so small they cannot spread their wings.
- Hens whose beaks had been painfully seared off with a hot blade
- Hens suffering from bloody open wounds without access to water when their wings, head, neck, or feathers became trapped in the wire of the cage.
- Corpses left to rot in cages.
- A hen with the skin of her neck pierced by a piece of sharp wire on the top of her cage. Her skin is shown slowly ripping off as the other hens jostle against her.
- A live hen in a trash can, left to die among carcasses.
(For full information visit www.mercyforanimals.org/OhioFreshEggs)
What Can I Do?
- Please choose an egg-free, animal-free diet. There is no such thing as a "humane" commercial egg or any other animal product – no matter what the label says. For information visit on egg production, visit
www.upc-online.org/battery_hens/ and www.upc-online.org/freerange/. Order "Replacing Eggs" –16 delicious egg-free recipes from UPC, PO Box 150, Machipongo, VA 23405.
- Contact the Kroger Corporation in Cincinnati, Ohio, and urge Kroger’s CEO to remove the deceptive "Animal Care Certified" (AAC) seal. Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, Kroger is one of the nation’s largest retail grocery chains. Respectfully urge the Kroger Corporation to stop using the "Animal Care Certified" logo on its egg cartons, as well as the egg cartons of Kroger’s nearly two dozen other store brands.
Mr. David B. Dillon, Chairman and CEO
Kroger Corporation
1014 Vine Street
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202-1100
Phone: 513-762-4000. Fax: 513-762-1400
Toll-free customer service: 1-800-632-6900
- Mercy For Animals’ detailed letter to Kroger is available at
www.mercyforanimals.org/OhioFreshEggs./kroger_letter.asp
United Poultry Concerns is a nonprofit organization that promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl. www.upc-online.org
 United
Poultry Concerns, Inc.
PO Box 150
Machipongo, VA 23405-0150
757-678-7875
FAX: 757-678-5070
www.upc-online.org |
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