Putting the Chicken Before the Egg

A growing animal welfare campaign has a wave of colleges and universities, corporate cafeterias, natural foods markets, management companies, even a K-8 school either eliminating or reducing their use of eggs from caged hens.

The Washington D.C. based Humane Society of the United States has

Egged on by campus activists who embrace this idea, colleges such as Univ. of Connecticut, Yale, Tufts, Dartmouth, Notre Dame, UC Berkeley and The Ohio State University have embraced a cage-free egg policy in one form or another.

And while colleges are clearly on the front lines of this controversy, operators in other segments, especially in regions known for political activism, are following suit.

Last month, the caf? at Internet super-giant Google joined other corporate caf?s like those at AOL and Oracle Corporation when it also made the decision to discontinue using cagefarm produced eggs in the company's employee dining facilities.