Episode 11: The Many, Many Labels on Your Eggs
In the past decade, demand for eggs has grown, with average egg consumption expected to hit 286 per person this year. But the kind of eggs we are looking for has changed during that time, too. Consumers are eager to know if the chickens had enough space to move around. Were they cage-free? free-range? Pasture-raised? Organic? In response to those questions about where those eggs come from and how those hens lived out their lives, egg cartons and the labels and claims on them are working overtime to tell us a story. In this episode, we look at the many labels on your carton of eggs and dig into what they mean and what they definitely don’t mean.
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“So we're looking at the end of the line and what are the washes you can dunk the meat in at the end when they're dirty and clean them up? What can you wash the egg with? Rather than asking the questions of, well, how do I make this system cleaner to begin with?“
Episode Guests:
Patty Lovera
Patty Lovera works on food and agriculture policy, with a special focus on animal agriculture. She helped start Food & Water Watch (FWW), serving as their Food and Water Program Director for 14 years.
Urvashi Rangan
Dr. Rangan is the Chief Science Advisor for FoodPrint, and a toxicologist and public health scientist with 20 years of experience studying the food system. She is a co-chair of the Funders for Regenerative Agriculture and for many years she worked at Consumer Reports, heading up their Food Safety and Sustainability Center.
Emily Moose
Emily Moose is the Executive Director of A Greener World, which promotes and supports real-life farming models to the public and offers practical guidance on achieving truly sustainable livestock farming systems to farmers and ranchers. They run several certifications for farmers, including the Animal Welfare Approved label.
Ryan Nebeker
Ryan is the policy and research analyst for FoodPrint. He holds an M.S. in Agriculture, Food and the Environment from The Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.
Tove Danovich
Tove is a freelance journalist with a debut nonfiction book coming out spring 2023. It’s called “Under the Henfluence: Inside the World of Backyard Chickens and the People Who Love Them.”
Errol Schweizer
Errol has worked in retail, CPG and food policy for over 25 years, including 7 years as V.P. of Grocery for Whole Foods. He serves as a Board Member, Advisor and mentor to over 20 high growth enterprises in natural products retail, CPG, cannabis, E-commerce, and nonprofit sectors and hosts a podcast on food and labor called The Checkout.
FoodPrint Tools and Articles
Resources mentioned in the episode and beyond:
- What are “pasture-raised eggs,” really?, The Counter, exploring Handsome Brook Farms and Vital Farms
- The Barnyard Strategist, The New York Times, about Proposition 2
- Is the Future of Eggs in Family Farms?, Civil Eats, about Pete and Gerry’s Eggs
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Top photo by Aleksandr Kolesnikov/Adobe Stock.