Supermarkets in the state of Michigan will stop selling eggs from caged chickens in the new year, raising concerns about further increased egg prices amid elevated inflation.
Grocery stores, with very few exceptions, will no longer offer shell eggs from chickens kept in cages to their customers starting on Dec. 31, according to a report from MLive.com.
That change has been years in the making.
Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, standing in for Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, signed a bill in 2019 to amend the Animal Industry Act and ensure all egg-laying hens in the state are kept out of cages.
Five years later, industry representatives now say egg producers have prepared for the changes.
“Our producers are ready. They’ve spent a lot of time and money getting there but they are committed to the cage-free housing for all of their hens and pullets,” Nancy Barr, executive director of Michigan Allied Poultry Industries, said in reaction to the changes, per MLive.com.
Tim Boring, director of the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, revealed that employees of the agency will be working to ensure compliance.
“Producers have been working to retrofit a lot of these systems for quite some time to be in cage-free situations,” he said.
Boring added that he has not heard of any major egg supply issues amid the changing regulations.
Should more states only allow cage-free eggs?
Other Michigan officials have likewise been anticipating the new rules for several months.
Michigan Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel sent a letter in July to SpartanNash, a grocer based in Michigan, asking them to add signage in their stores that helps customers understand whether certain eggs come from caged hens.
“Every consumer deserves to feel confident about the food they put on their dinner table,” Nessel wrote.
Her office asserted that cage-free systems “generally provide better living conditions for hens compared to traditional battery cages, which raise numerous public health, environmental, and animal welfare concerns.”
But as the new policy is set to take effect, others are worried about increased prices.
The cost of eggs has already risen 91% in the Midwest as of November compared to the same month last year.
The typical cage-free eggs are meanwhile 45 cents more expensive than eggs from chickens raised in cages, according to MLive.com.
Cage-free chickens require more labor to raise since the systems are more complex, while producers also face added costs to convert their old cage-centered systems, Vincenzina Caputo, a consumer and food economics professor at Michigan State University, told the outlet.
Michigan is one of about a dozen states that limit the sale of eggs from caged chickens, per the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
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