Burger King: Cage-Free

By JULIETTE ROSSANT Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation and Chew On This (see previous review) must be celebrating. Following close on the heels of Wolfgang Puck's announcement last week that his restaurants would be socially responsible and following new guidelines to purchase products from farms that treat their animals humanely (see previous article), Burger King has even bigger news. The fast food giant, the world's second-largest hamburger chain, announced that it would start buying free-range eggs and pork from suppliers that do not keep animals in gestation crates. Fine dining restaurants have been using free-range and organic products for years. The impact of a buying giant like BK on farmers and producers will be huge. The New York Times published an AP article that reported that BK would be starting small: The goal for the next few months, Burger King said, was for 2 per cent of its eggs to be cage free and for 10 per cent of its pork to come from pig farms that allowed sows to move around inside pens, rather than being confined to crates.The company said these percentages would rise as more farmers shifted to these methods and more competitively priced supplies become available. Burger King will also give purchasing preference to poultry suppliers that use or switch to ''controlled atmosphere stunning"… Will this affect how much product is available to supermarkets and restaurants? Will BK's announcement encourage other fast food to follow its lead? BK is actually following McDonalds, Wal-Mart and Whole Foods, which have all taken steps to increase their purchases of humanely rasised foods. The press made no mention of milk products or beef, which must account for an even larger percentage of BK's purchases than chicken or pork - it is, after all, a burger chain. Related News: CBS News TIME ABC News Motley Fool Reuters Chicago Tribune Boston Globe Previous articles: Foie Gras War: Wolfgang Puck Cleans Hands Branding: Todd English, Beer Gourmet Wall Street Journal: Beef Over Chef Censorship [Foie Gras War - complete] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging Del.icio.us | Digg | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl --> back to Super Chef