VICTORY: COK Wins “Animal Care Certified” Campaign!

	"A classic example of David trying to bring down Goliath is seen with the efforts of Compassion Over Killing." Egg Industry magazine, October 2002

Egg Industry to pull deceptive logo from cartons nationwide

On September 30, 2005, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that the United Egg Producers' (UEP) "Animal Care Certified" logo will no longer be stamped on egg cartons nationwide. This decision ends the egg industry's three-year national advertising campaign which misled consumers concerned about animal cruelty.

According to the FTC, by March 31, 2006, the "Animal Care Certified" logo will be gone from grocery store shelves, and consumers can expect to find it replaced with an alternative logo reading: "United Egg Producers Certified."

Although the UEP's husbandry guidelines still permit routine animal cruelty including intensive confinement and debeaking, the new logo will no longer convey a false message of humane animal care. This major victory is the result is two years of effort by COK to stop the egg industry from misleading consumers about its routine abuse of animals.

This campaign victory has received extensive media coverage, including articles in the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today and the Des Moines Register.

The "Animal Care Certified" logo first came under scrutiny in June 2003, when Compassion Over Killing filed petitions with the Better Business Bureau and the FTC, as well as other federal agencies, asserting that the logo is misleading advertising. Under the "Animal Care Certified" guidelines, egg producers are permitted to intensively confine hens in "battery cages" so small they can't even spread their wings.

In 2003, and again upon appeal in 2004, the Better Business Bureau deemed the "Animal Care Certified" logo misleading because it implied a greater level of humane care than is actually the case. Despite these rulings and the BBB's subsequent referral of the matter to FTC for potential legal action against the UEP, the logo continued to appear on cartons across the country—and consumers continued to be deceived.

COK's two-year campaign to expose the truth behind the "Animal Care Certified" logo has included undercover investigations inside certified farms, media exposés, consumer polls and outreach, petitions, as well as the filing of a lawsuit in the District of Columbia Superior Court against two retailers and an egg producer for their continued use of the misleading logo.

Please review our campaign timeline for details.