Kiwi coffee brand embraces cage-free

One of New Zealand’s oldest names in coffee, Robert Harris, has joined the cage-free egg revolution. After talks with SAFE, the café brand is committing to a future of free-range only eggs.

By the end of 2020, the café chain’s breakfast menu will serve only free-range eggs.  By 2025, all eggs served in Robert Harris’ 40 New Zealand cafés will be free-range, both as ingredients cooked into cabinet items, and cracked eggs made to order.

SAFE Corporate Campaigner Jennifer Dutton says the momentum of the cage-free trend is inescapable.

“It’s fantastic to see yet another brand distancing themselves from this industrial cruelty to hens,” she says.

“The caring public doesn’t accept this kind of factory farming, and companies are seeing they must do better.”

The Kiwi coffee company is the latest to join in on a local and international trend of cage-free commitments.

Many café and convenience food competitors already have cage-free policies. The Coffee Club, Esquires Coffee, Columbus, Subway, Wendy’s, Burger King, McDonald’s, Hell Pizza, Burger Fuel, Pita Pit and Habitual Fix have all committed to ditching cage cruelty in their whole-egg products. In addition to whole-egg policies, SAFE is in talks with many food service outlets and manufacturers to expand their commitment to eggs used as ingredients in other products.

The worldwide campaign to free hens from cages is part of a global revolution by animal advocacy groups, including members of the Open Wing Alliance, of which SAFE is a partner organisation.