Gareth Manning and Katy Read looking over Sunset's free range farm. Photos Jon Rawlinson.

Good eggs are as ‘good as gold’ in the New Zealand market where more and more consumers are demanding eggs from cage-free poultry as evidenced at the inaugural Good Egg Awards in Auckland last month.

Visiting New Zealand as a judge for the awards, Katy Read, head of food business for UK-based Compassion in World Farming, said demand was growing worldwide and more than 180,000 New Zealand layer hens were set to benefit this year from the policies of the Good Egg Award winners. 

“Consumers know about cages and they are becoming unacceptable; we’ve seen it in the United Kingdom where the majority of caged eggs are no longer sold through retailers because people don’t want to buy them.”

She added that the demand for cage-free eggs was consumer led with retailers then signalling this preference to producers and their supply chain. “Producers know that to stay in business, they need to go to cage-free.”

While in Auckland Katy visited Sunset Free Range Poultry, at Mangatangi,  in the north Waikato.

Director Gareth Manning, said Sunset produced free range eggs for both ethical and financial reasons. “Our capital costs are higher than those of a similarly sized battery farm but due to increasing consumer demand, Sunset saw the need to supply cage-free eggs in order to ensure economical viability,” he said.

 “It’s like any type of farming, if you manage it right you’re going to make a buck. If we look after our birds, they’re going to lay a good egg and that’s what it’s all about!”

Gareth said that although costs on a free range farm were high because fewer birds could be kept in any given space, and production was more labour intensive, the SPCA’s Blue Tick made markets more accessible, enabling more eggs to be sold.

“Blue Tick has a lot of credibility and the SPCA is a globally renowned organisation. The Blue Tick has got us into a lot of supermarkets and restaurants; otherwise we would have been just another producer. However, we can’t have any vested interest in battery cages at all to earn a Blue Tick.”

With many producers running both battery and free range farms, Gareth said the Blue Tick improved transparency in the marketplace.

“The cheap free range eggs are usually produced by companies that also own battery farms... probably about 70% of the free range eggs on the market. If farmers have caged birds and free range birds who is to say they’re not mixing eggs?”

Despite increasing competition as more cage-free producers enter the market, Gareth is confident Sunset’s business model and experience will prove to be their point of strength.

He said consumer demand is not based solely on concerns for animal welfare; it was also a matter of good taste.

SPCA's Blue Tick improves transparency in the marketplace.

“You’ll notice the colour of the yolk straight away. With chickens eating lots of grass, their eggs have a deep orange yolk and it leaves a great taste in your mouth.”

On the question of ‘enriched’ cages Katy said that European farmers who had invested capital into converting farms to ‘enriched’ cages (larger with better conditions than standard battery cages) were now facing financial problems.

“In the UK and Europe those producers who invested in enriched cages are really at a disadvantage because the big organisations, such as Sainsbury and Tesco, are saying ‘we don’t want cages at all, you’re going to have to phase them out... the consumer doesn’t want caged eggs, the consumer wants cage-free.”

Unless New Zealand producers move to cage-free production Katy said they could be left behind as has occurred in the UK.

“The industry in New Zealand is at a crossroads, looking at whether to invest in enriched cages or cage free, so it’s a good time for organisations such as CIWF to raise the message.”

Interestingly, demand for cage-free eggs in Europe has also extended to egg-based products including mayonnaise. Katy said when Hellman’s marketed its mayonnaise as a real product using real ingredients, sales went up as did brand cognition and brand loyalty.

• The SPCA Blue Tick, a national certification programme, identifies animal food products produced in a manner guaranteed to be humanely farmed. With Blue Tick, the whole process and all the rules.