The Humane Society of the United States is seeking a criminal investigation of an alleged price-fixing scheme uncovered during a class-action lawsuit against United Egg Producers — the nation’s largest egg trade association — and 13 of the nation’s leading egg factory-farming corporations.
According to the Associated Press, Sparboe Farms, the nation’s fifth-largest egg producer, has turned over documents and internal memos that reveal the U.S. egg industry orchestrated a massive hen kill-off to increase the price of eggs. Included in the documents is a statement from the United Egg Producers’ research economist pointing out that the egg industry could earn more money by reducing the supply of eggs.
All but one of the factory-farming companies named in the case — including Cal-Maine Foods, Golden Oval Eggs, Michael Foods, Midwest Poultry Services, Moark, National Food Corporation, Norco Ranch, NuCal Foods, Pilgrim’s Pride, Rose Acre Farms and R.W. Sauder — donated huge sums of money to the campaign to defeat Proposition 2, a popular anti-cruelty measure in California that ensures modest welfare standards for egg-laying hens by allowing them enough room to turn around and spread their wings.
In an effort to defeat Prop 2, the egg industry insisted that it could not afford a penny more per egg to give hens enough space to spread their wings, yet egg producers have been reaping record profits by conspiring to inflate egg prices nationwide by as much as 45 percent. Obviously, the egg industry can afford to do better.
Adding to the company’s woes, Rose Acre Farms, one of the defendants in the case, was the subject of a recent undercover investigation that revealed egregious cruelty to animals at one of the company’s Iowa facilities.
Luckily, each of us has the power to end the egg industry’s abuses of hens and unsuspecting customers by simply removing eggs from our diets and replacing them with cruelty-free vegan alternatives.
