The chairman of the NFU Poultry Board says the egg industry has been thrown into uncertainty by the cage-free commitment of leading British retailers.
Tesco, Asda and Morrisons all recently announced that they would stop selling eggs from cage units in the future. Discounters Aldi and Lidl have made the same commitment, and, more recently, the convenience chain, Spar, has also announced it is going cage-free.
The recent announcements have all targeted 2025 as the date for conversion, but Poultry Board chairman Duncan Priestner told the Ranger he was worried about the move. The United Kingdom had only recently spent millions and millions of pounds converting units to enriched cage to comply with a European Union ban on battery cages, which came into force at the beginning of 2012. Now, producers were being told by major retailers that eggs from these units would not be wanted in future.
Duncan spoke of his concerns to FarmingUKTV.
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