At the Kroger shareholder meeting tomorrow, a representative of The Humane Society of the United States, the nation's largest animal welfare group and a Kroger shareholder, will urge the company to improve its animal welfare policies.

The HSUS is asking the company to join a number of other major corporations in moving away from sales of eggs from caged hens.

Paul Shapiro, senior director of The HSUS's Factory Farming Campaign, stated, "The company should take concrete steps to reduce this type of animal cruelty in its supply chain."

Kroger's online animal welfare statement claims that it follows the egg industry's voluntary guideline program. This program, "United Egg Producers Certified," allows some of the worst factory farm abuses.

Prior to being called "United Egg Producers Certified," the program was called "Animal Care Certified." The Better Business Bureau, 16 state attorneys general, and the Washington, D.C., attorney general believed that calling the UEP guidelines "Animal Care Certified" was misleading advertising because the logo implied a higher care of animal welfare than actually exists.