AGRICULTURAL NEWS - Famous Brands CEO, Darren Hele, has announced that Famous Brands will be using only cage-free eggs by 2025.
Speaking on ‘The Money Show’ on Radio 702, Hele said the company had agreed to source only eggs that were produced in cage-free layer systems by 2025.
“It is not easy. There is no legislation [in South Africa] that determines eggs have to be cage-free, so an entire supply chain has been developed to not facilitate it. We have to try and change an entire industry [first, before sourcing cage-free eggs],” Hele said on the show.
According to him, Famous Brands’ leading restaurants, which included Wimpy, Mugg & Bean, Tashas, Steers, Vovo Telo, and House of Coffees, amongst others, collectively used about 50 million eggs per year.
Mandla Gqamlana, company relations and campaigns co-ordinator of the South African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute (SAFCEI), told Farmer’s Weekly that the SAFCEI had engaged Famous Brands about sourcing cage-free eggs in April 2017, as the institute believed that egg production in caged systems was cruel, Gqamlana said.
