ALTOONA, Pa. -- Sheetz is committing to the sale of only cage-free eggs in its stores by 2025. This shift is part of the convenience brand’s ongoing efforts to address issues of food safety and animal welfare within its foodservice program.
By going cage-free, Altoona, Pa.-based Sheetz believes it is aligning with the preferences and expectations of its customers. "Our customers drive everything we do, and we understand they expect high standards for the products we sell. That is why we have been working with our egg suppliers and the leaders of our industry to better understand the conversion of our egg products to completely cage-free operations,” said Ryan Sheetz, assistant vice president of brand strategy for Sheetz.
“As we work toward this goal, we understand the need to balance a number of issues that include not only maintaining animal health and safety standards, but also concerns such as meeting customer demand, industry supply, ensuring economic sustainability and the ability for farms to stay in business while making the changes necessary to address this plan,” Sheetz said.
Recent Technomic data shows that cage-free eggs help boost positive perceptions among consumers in regard to both health and taste. Technomic’s 2016 Healthy Consumer Trend Report revealed that 62% of consumers believe that cage-free eggs are healthier and 39% believe that cage-free eggs are tastier. Additionally, 63% of consumers overall said that they’d be likely to buy and are willing to pay more for cage-free egg products.
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