Cadbury Creme Egg, Hellmann’s and The National Trust are among the UK’s leading brands to be named at the award ceremony in London which will be hosted by Joanna Lumley.

Joanna Lumley

“The Good Egg Award winners are abandoning eggs from battery cages in all sorts of products. From cakes to confectionary to mayonnaise, consumers looking for ethical eggs will finally be able to make that choice,” says Joanna Lumley who is fronting the campaign for Compassion in World Farming.

Award winners this year will effectively release over 10 million hens from cages, double the number released by Good Egg Award winners’ commitments last year. The awards have been set up by leading animal welfare group Compassion in World Farming to celebrate companies ditching the battery cage egg in favour of eggs from free-range or barn kept hens.

Receiving a 2008 Good Egg Award are: The National Trust, Cadbury Creme Egg, Bradford & Bingley, City Hall, The Cooperative Food, Country Style Foods Ltd, Hellmann’s UK, Leon restaurants, McDonald’s Europe, Unilever Europe, Restaurant Associates, Sainsbury’s, Subway, Tate, Transport for London, Waitrose, Hampshire County Council, Shropshire County Council, Halton Borough Council, Metropolitan Borough of Wirral and Croydon Council.

As the UK’s largest supermarket Tesco will receive the 2008 Rotten Egg Award for failing to make a commitment to rid their shelves of battery cage eggs. Tesco would free an estimated 1.3 million birds from cages each year if it moved to selling only barn and free-range eggs.

Although the consumer trend for free-range is growing steadily in the UK, 62 per cent of the UK hen flock is still kept in battery cages, ranking the UK fifth in a European league table. In some countries such as Spain and Portugal the figure rises to 97 per cent. “These awards make it clear that the food business is turning its back on battery cages,” says Philip Lymbery, Chief Executive of Compassion in World Farming.

He continues: “Pressure on producers to supply more barn and free-range eggs is mounting. The Good Egg Awards demonstrate a growing demand for ethically sourced eggs, currently led by some of the world’s biggest brands. Producers and food companies who’ve yet to ditch the cage need to wake up to this change and act now.

Consumers no longer want to eat food that has been produced in cruel systems.” Joanna Lumley, patron of the charity concludes: “Battery cages are an outrage. But we can all help to consign them to the scrapbook of history. Let’s all commit to buying only free range eggs.”

Battery cages are small wire cages which prohibit many natural behaviours and provide a space per hen similar to an A4 sheet of paper.