As just reported on Green Lodging News, Scandic Hotels has decided to stop using eggs from caged hens. Each year, Scandic serves between 11.5 and 13 million eggs at its hotels, with the majority already from free-range hens, and from September 2018, the hotel will begin to gradually phase out eggs from caged hens in all products. The new policy will apply at all Scandic hotels. Eggs, and products containing eggs, from caged hens will be gradually phased out between September 2018 and 2020, with the exception of hotels in Norway where they will be completely phased out by 2022.
Scandic Hotels joins a number of other lodging industry companies that have committed to give up eggs from caged hens. In October last year, Wyndham Worldwide Corp. announced a global cage-free policy for all of its hotels’ and resorts’ supply chain. This policy is the result of exclusive conversations with The Humane League and members of its global coalition, Open Wing Alliance. The commitment will transition all the company’s 8,100 hotels to source 100 percent cage-free eggs by 2025. The move will impact locations in 66 different countries on six continents.
In 2016, Starwood Hotels & Resorts (now a part of Marriott) announced plans to source 100 percent of its eggs from cage-free chickens across its supply chain by 2020. In 2013, Marriott committed to eliminating eggs from caged hens by 2015. Also in 2013, ARAMARK announced it would source all shell eggs within the United States from cage-free hens by the end of 2014.
Other companies such as Hilton, Hyatt and Omni have also made commitments to purchase eggs from cage-free hens.
According to The Humane Society of the United States, on factory farms, hens are confined by the millions in tiny cages and denied the most basic elements of a natural life. The cages are so small the hens cannot even spread their wings.
