Sunday, January 23, 2011

Unethical Chicken Abuse May Impact Restaurant Industry

Egg production is a very important aspect of the restaurant and food industry. The Humane Society of the United States decided to place an “undercover activist” to work as an employee at an egg farm that is owned by a company called, “Cal-Maine” (The largest distributor of eggs in the country). Over just 28 days of working as an employee, the activist found the following:

1. “Birds trapped in cage wires, unable to reach food or water. Cage wires can trap hens’ wings, necks, legs and feet, causing other birds to trample the weakened animals, usually resulting in a slow, painful death.”


2. “Abandoned hens. Live birds were roaming outside their cages, some falling into manure pits.”
3. "Injuries. Birds had bloody feet and broken legs from cage wires."


4. "Overcrowding injuries. Cal-Maine crams multiple birds into one cage, giving each hen only 67 square inches of cage space — less than a sheet of paper on which to live for more than a year.”

5. "Eggs covered in blood and feces."

After reporting this information to the government, Cal-Maine responded by saying that they provide their consumers with information as to whether the eggs were produced in cages or not, and went on to explain that none of the eggs that have been recalled due to salmonella were from Cal-Maine facilities. They also went on to say “All of Cal-Maine Foods’ eggs are produced in accordance with United Egg Producers (UEP) animal care guidelines.”

Michael Greger, the Humane Society’s director for public health and animal agriculture stated that there is a new egg safety law that was implemented this past summer requires there to be “biosecurity and hygiene standards.” This is crucial because it forces the companies to take care of the issue revolving around the restaurant industry. Restaurants want to provide their companies with sanitary food that didn’t come from facilities that abuse their animals.

The question of ethics now comes into play. It is obvious that Cal-Maine is making a lot of money off of the production of their eggs, and is hesitant to put money towards providing the chickens with more suitable living conditions. Cal-Maine stated that they are already taking initiative to provide the chickens with better living quarters, but now that the media and government is watching them, they need to make changes relatively quickly. There are many stakeholders in this situation: CEO, employees, chickens, consumers, stockholders, etc. It is important for Cal-Maine to act responsibly and proactively to try to maintain a strong reputation, and provide their chickens with the most suitable living conditions, which could ultimately improve their production of eggs in the long run. Providing the chickens with such conditions might hurt the company financially in the short run, but the company must realize that they are treating their chickens in an inhumane way and providing unsanitary food into the market.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40236758/ns/us_news-environment/

2 comments:

  1. I think that Cal-Maine company faced in the trade off between profit and hygiene. And it can be generalized to housestocks such as pig, cow, etc. Thus, it is important to regualte that company neglect the animals right.

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  2. Good post. Make sure an issue outside of the restaurant industry (like this one) discusses its impact on the restaurant industry. Your industry is hotel, restaurant and leisure, not actual food production.

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