The Happy Hen on Your Supermarket Shelf: What Choice Does Industrial Strength Free Range Represent for Consumers?
(2013) 10(2) Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 165-186
Monash University Faculty of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2013/13
41 Pages Posted: 22 Jun 2013 Last revised: 24 Feb 2014
Date Written: March 3, 2013
Abstract
This paper investigates what “free-range” eggs are available for sale in supermarkets in Australia, what “free-range” means on product labelling, and what alternative “free-range” offers to cage production. The paper concludes that most of the “free-range” eggs currently available in supermarkets do not address animal welfare, environmental sustainability, and public health concerns but, rather, seek to drive down consumer expectations of what these issues mean by balancing them against commercial interests. This suits both supermarkets and egg producers because it does not challenge dominant industrial-scale egg production and the profits associated with it. A serious approach to free-range would confront these arrangements, and this means it may be impossible to truthfully label many of the “free-range” eggs currently available in the dominant supermarkets as free-range.
Keywords: animal welfare, animal law, free range eggs, free range hens, supermarkets, ethics, regulation, consumer protection, animal ethics, misleading labelling, ethical shopping
JEL Classification: Q13
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation