Which of the six major supermarkets is friendliest to laying hens? An animal society survey: RT-Mart and Carrefour perform well, PX Mart and Simple Mart the worst

Eggs are a food that people in Taiwan eat almost every day, yet the animal welfare of laying hens still does not receive enough attention in Taiwan, and the proportion of laying hens kept in battery cages remains high. The Environment & Animal Society of Taiwan (hereafter "EAST") conducted a survey of eggs sold by six major brands in Taiwan and found that RT-Mart and Carrefour had the highest proportion of "cage-free eggs" for sale, with RT-Mart also promising to stop selling caged eggs by 2025. The performance of the local brands PX Mart and Simple Mart was disappointing: not only do they lack policies for treating laying hens well and dedicated sales sections, but the proportion of cage-free eggs sold by PX Mart was even just 4%.

To show how inhumane keeping laying hens in battery cages is, EAST specially commissioned a stuffed hen toy, placing four hens at actual scale into a space only about the size of a single A4 sheet. EAST pointed out that hens raised this way can never stretch their wings their whole lives, and all their physiological needs are met inside a cage in which they cannot even turn around. How could hens so unhealthy in body and mind provide healthy eggs for humans to eat?

Taiwan's two major local brands at the bottom: cage-free eggs account for only 4% at PX Mart

EAST researcher Chen Chih-fu said that as early as 2012 the European Union fully banned the raising of laying hens in battery cages, and this "cage-free" wave has swept the globe, with more than 1,900 international companies and more than 400 retail channels actively formulating "cage-free policies," including the French brands RT-Mart and Carrefour and the UK's Costco.

Has Taiwan also actively kept up with this "cage-free" trend? Based on 2019 channel revenue and number of stores as indicators, EAST selected six major channels - "PX Mart, Simple Mart, Wellcome, Carrefour (hypermarkets and convenience stores), RT-Mart, and Costco" - and conducted sampling surveys at a total of 63 stores and 261 samples across the six special municipalities, evaluating them on three indicators: the proportion of "cage-free egg products," whether they have a "cage-free egg products" policy, and whether the store has set up a "cage-free egg products" section.

The evaluation results showed that international brands such as RT-Mart and Carrefour performed better than local brands, but were still far from adequate compared with their own international parent companies. On the "proportion of cage-free egg products" indicator, RT-Mart ranked first at 37%, Carrefour second, with its hypermarkets reaching 34% and its convenience stores also at 32%, while Wellcome had only 10%. Costco sold only two kinds of eggs, one of which was cage-free, but it was sold only in a few stores, for an overall proportion of about 25%.

The two major local brands, PX Mart and Simple Mart, scored the worst in the evaluation. Of Simple Mart's 27 egg products, only 7% were cage-free; of PX Mart's 55 egg products, only 2 were cage-free, a proportion of just 4%.