WalMart Says Cage Free - Do You Care?

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

I read that Wal Mart says it is going with cage-free eggs.  The article says Wal Mart sells 25% of the grocieries in the U.S. and this decision will tip the supply chain so that cage-free will be the new norm.

What do you think?  Will this affect the big producer mroe than the small one?  Will industry adapt and captial be used to automate egg production?  Will there be more need for low-skilled labor to gather eggs?

Will the price of eggs go up to the consumer?  Will quality go up?

How does one verify that egg production is cage free?  Do we take the producers word for it?  Does someone inspect your laying facilityi?  Who pays that person?  Who verifies the inspector is not being bribed?

Interesting.  Every action or policy develops consequences, many unintended and unanticipated.  I wonder what they will be.

[BA Deere]

I don`t care.

We buy our eggs from a friend for $2 dozen and they are excellent brown eggs...it`s just a hobby for them.   Through the countryside it`s very common to see a "Eggs 4 sale $2" sign at the end of their driveway.  I don`t like chickens crapping all over everything, so if someone wants to raise my eggs for 2 bucks, I say have at it.  The thing is the eggs that we buy are one day out of the chicken`s butt, them eggs you buy in the store are over 40 days old right when you put `em in your shopping cart. 

But Wallyworld demanding the eggs they buy are "cage free"...well I see where PayPal is discriminating against North Carolina because they aren`t happy with a law protecting religious freedom and the GLGLBLT community is all having a hissy fit about that.  Corporations rule the world. 

[JCCWIS]

5  20,000 bird barns have gone up in last year [ Clark Co. Wi. , Nort. Cent. Wi. ] all cage free.  No more labor involved....does take more square ft. / bird. Did find out litter going to organic farms.

Mennonite operators.

John

[OKdon]

No they don't. They merely tell suppliers and customers that if you want to discriminate, that's fine,but we don't wish to do business people that do. I'm guessing that the vast majority of their customers agree.

[Shaggy98]

BA Deere wrote:

I don`t care.

The thing is the eggs that we buy are one day out of the chicken`s butt, them eggs you buy in the store are over 40 days old right when you put `em in your shopping cart.

One of the better phrases I've heard in awhile.  Earned a star from me.  

[sw363535]

Not important just salesmanship.....  

I really doubt the data about walmart grocery sales.... but I havent researched the data...

Producers will, as usual, spend 20% more to get a 2% premium for a fad that will be gone when the customer evaluates their purchase...

IMO

[k-289]

Sales are an interesting animal of emotion as the younger folks involved in this business are finding out ---

Customer relations   and  R O I  will meet an intersect with some kind of medium --- 

[sw363535]

Tell them what they want to here....

The product for sale is perrishable....

It will soon be gone and the missleading passion it took to sell it will vanish....

What we believe about our choices is important .... we hold on to a need to see the world in a different way....

We have to believe in something...... that makes us more than just a number that never got recorded........

That is what makes a belief so easy to grab onto and near impossible to change......

Like when I look around on the high plains and see the families that survived the depression and homesteading and WW2 ....

And think it was all worthwhile for those late 1800's settlers.....  

My mind just doesn't want to consider the millions who didn't survive,, even when the empty shacks are still there...

Maybe Psychology was a worthwhile study...

[NewAgJudge]

LOL you really hate that you don't have the right to take another persons rights away, don't you.

What is  GLGLBLT ?

Real farmers have their own layer flocks.

[KSKid501]

Okay, so let me preface this with pointing out that I'm probably at least ten years younger than most all of the active participants here (22, finish BS next week and start PhD the week after).  As someone looking to find a way into production ag without capital or a land base (parents both moved off the farm, grandparents are down to ~200 acres that they rent out), these new trends are probably my only chance to get involved outside of working for someone else.  Differentiating commodities for a specific subset of the population or certain industries (Alcoa moving from smelting only to more and more processed components, whether for auto or aircraft comes to mind) can add "value" (psychologically and economically, at least).  If some suit from NYC wants to buy organic wheat for his bakery, or some Saudi immigrant wants goat raised and slaughtered by their religious requirements, I'm willing to tailor my potential operation to that customer, even though I think its stupid. Money talks, folks.