COK Targets Egg Industry Deception
A Campaign Update

Click here to visit EggScam.com

In the last issue of The Abolitionist, we featured our latest efforts to expose the egg industry’s abuses of nearly 300 million egg-laying hens with another undercover exposé. We also reported on our federal and state legal filings, asserting that the multibillion-dollar industry’s use of its “Animal Care Certified” egg carton logo was misleading unknowing consumers into believing that hens laying “ACC” eggs were treated humanely.

The so-called “Animal Care Certified” guidelines permit egg producers to:

• Confine birds so tightly in small wire cages they can’t even flap their wings.
• Sear off parts of the beaks of chicks—without any painkiller.
• Starve birds until they’ve lost up to 30 percent of their bodyweight to jolt their bodies into another laying cycle.

According to a 2004 Zogby survey commissioned by COK, most consumers thought it was more likely than not that ACC-labeled eggs came from cage-free hens who were not debeaked or starved.

This is not only a case of animal cruelty; it is also a case of consumer fraud.

COK took this fraud issue to the National Advertising Division of the Better Business Bureau (BBB). After the BBB ruled that the ACC logo is in fact misleading and should be discontinued, several media outlets reported on the issue. Television news programs across the country have aired features on the case and COK’s efforts to protect animals. The media interest was kicked off with an Associated Press story on its national wire about the BBB’s decision.

The AP article begins, “The Better Business Bureau has said egg producers should stop advertising humane treatment of hens under guidelines that allow them to be crammed in cages so tiny they can’t flap their wings and their beaks to be cut off.”

The article continues on to quote from the Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division report: “Consumers concerned about the treatment of animals may purchase eggs in cartons bearing the seal under the misimpression that the hens that laid the eggs were treated to higher levels of care than is actually the case.”

Realizing the enormity of its public relations problems, the egg industry is now dumping massive amounts of money into a PR campaign aimed at improving consumer perception of its abusive industry. Trade journal Feedstuffs reported in a February 2004 issue on a speech by the United Egg Producers’ president: “UEP president Al Pope urged producers to understand the stakes. ‘You are in a battle royal’ with activists and government and government officials who want husbandry regulated, he said.”

Our efforts to help laying hens and expose the egg industry’s cruelty and deceptions will not stop. Thank you for your support!

You Can Help!

1. Write a letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in support of COK’s petition to halt the use of the “Animal Care Certified” logo on egg cartons. Click here for more details.

2. Talk with your grocer about how misleading the ACC logo is and ask for a storewide battery cage ban. For more information on the cruelties of battery cages, visit EggScam.com.

3. Write your representatives and ask them to support legislation to protect farmed animals. See action.fund.org/directory/ to find your representatives.

4. Finally and most importantly, take the most effective action you can to help laying hens and all farmed animals: leave animal products out of your shopping cart. Visit TryVeg.com for COK’s free Vegetarian Starter Guide.

Animal Care Certified?

Animals in factory farms do not receive individualized veterinary care. COK investigators found this bloody bird languishing without treatment in her cage.

Under the UEP’s new “Animal Care Certified” guidelines, egg-laying hens are still overcrowded in barren metal cages, without room to even flap their wings.

Like so many hens, this bird suffers from infection and disease, common in modern factory farms.

Still-living hens have no choice but to live, sleep, eat, and lay eggs on top of decomposing corpses of dead birds.

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