Iceland’s U-turn on eggs is both unsurprising and inevitable | Comment & Opinion

Iceland’s u-turn on its cage-free egg commitment was both unsurprising and inevitable.

In 2016 it had committed to being completely cage-free by 2025. But that commitment vanished from its website earlier this year, leading to understandable criticism from animal welfare campaigners.

At the time, the frozen food giant cited supply chain disruption and the cost of living crisis as reasons why its initial promise was no longer achievable. However, during the same time period, Aldi, M&S, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons have transitioned to offering fully cage-free eggs across their whole offer, with all other supermarkets committing to reaching this target by the end of the year.

Now, after months of protests from animal welfare activists, Iceland is once again pledging to be cage-free by mid-2027.

“We’ve always been honest about the challenge of balancing improved animal welfare with the urgent need to help families through the cost of living crisis,” said Stuart Lendrum, director of product, process and sustainability at Iceland Foods. “That’s why we never stopped offering free-range eggs, and why we introduced barn eggs as an affordable additional higher-welfare option.”

The new 2027 timetable reflected the supermarket’s “long-term goal to offer only cage-free eggs while protecting access to quality food for families”, he said.

Iceland’s error of judgement

Today’s wholly unsurprising announcement comes just weeks after Iceland announced it was trialling the launch of barn eggs into stores to ’test the appetite’ for higher-welfare eggs. But the addition of the RSPCA Assured barn eggs into some of its London branches was not enough to quell concerns about the prominence of caged eggs across the rest of the retailer’s stores.

In fact, since Iceland went back on its commitment, animal rights group The Humane League had been consistently protesting against the supermarket, with a number of high-profile stunts. In April, activists picketed an Iceland store in Waterloo, while just last month its Deeside HQ was circled by a van bearing an image of smiling executive chairman Richard Walker alongside the question “Why won’t Iceland stop using eggs from caged hens?”.

The retailer continues to defend itself, citing its need to provide value for customers. Unfortunately, this doesn’t really wash when even the discounters have managed to stick to their commitment – and in the case of Aldi, managed to hit it a year early.

Of course, consumer budgets continue to be stretched by rising costs, and anything retailers can do to support that is welcome – but cutting back on animal welfare (especially when it is has been proven that consumers care about it) was a major error of judgement.

No hen left behind

A recent study from RSPCA Assured revealed that, if eggs from cage-free hens were not available, 61% of adults would either go elsewhere or refuse to buy eggs altogether. And even Iceland’s own data revealed that sales of caged eggs had declined by almost 15% in the past year.

Clearly the appetite is just not there, regardless of how low the cost.

While the motive has a question mark hanging over it, Iceland’s latest move is a positive one, more in keeping with its other recent pledges on animal welfare. Earlier this month it pledged to eliminate the use of eyestalk ablation across its own-label prawn supply chain by the end of 2027, and it has expanded its Aquaculture Stewardship Council certified range.

It is good to see Iceland becoming more aligned on providing higher-welfare product for its consumers across categories, and with two years ahead of it to make changes, the retailer should be in a good position to achieve these commitments.

And there will be plenty of eyes on the retailer to make sure it happens, with The Humane League’s managing director Sean Gifford saying the animal rights group would be “holding Iceland to this promise, and making sure no hen is left behind”.

If Iceland doesn’t keep its cage-free promise this time around, it risks being left with more than just egg on its face.