AN executive at one supermarket company recently wrote the United Egg Producers (UEP) asking for responses to a number of statements an animal rights advocate made opposing the company’s merchandising of eggs from cage production systems. UEP asked Dr. Joy Mench, an animal behavior specialist at the University of California-Davis, to answer the letter.

Mench, who directs the university’s center for animal welfare and teaches classes in the ethics of animal use, is a member of the scientific advisory committee that created and monitors UEP’ s animal care guidelines for cage egg production. She also is a member of the scientific advisory committee that oversees another organization’s guidelines for cage-free egg production. Accordingly, she is well versed in the advantages and disadvantages of both cage and cage-free egg production systems.

CONNECTING FARM TO FORK HE did it. As reported in this week’s Feedstuffs FoodLink, under activist pressure regarding his supermarket company’s merchandising of eggs from cage production systems, a company executive actually sought information from non-activist sources on the advantages and disadvantages of cage and cage-free system son the welfare of the hens in the systems.

His action contrasts starkly with some celebrated chefs, college foodservice managers, restaurant companies and other retailers, as well as some government bodies, who have acted on activists’ arguments without checking first on the veracity of their statements.

What he found out — and from a person specializing in animal welfare and ethics — is that cage systems are not what activists make them out to be, and in many cases, cage systems are as positive, if not more so, to the care, health and well-being of the hens than alternative systems.

That’s not the message the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, both of which advocate vegetarianism, like to relate or want decision-makers such as this executive to hear. In fact, their message is often wrong, either by design or mistake.

HSUS currently is pressuring Wendy’s International Inc. to “do the right thing” and use eggs from cage-free systems as it develops and expands its breakfast menu, complete with newspaper and radio advertisements saying the company’s attitude toward animal welfare is “frosty,” a reference to Wendy’s ice cream drinks (insert). Its ads blatantly condemn cage production and promote cage free production despite the benefits of cage systems and problems that can be associated with cage-free systems.