Trader Joe's Eggs Will Be Completely Cage-Free By 2025

Trader Joes, the national grocery chain with 457 store locations, will source only cage-free eggs by the year 2025, the company announced on its website on February 12.

Although it is not the first brand to make the cage-free commitment — Costco, Taco Bell, McDonald's, Nestlé, and Kellogg's have also made the switch — Trader Joe's is one of the first grocers to go cage-free, and its decision may encourage other big supermarkets to do the same. Whole Foods, which has more than 435 stores in the U.S., U.K., and Canada, is also cage-free.

"In 2005, in response to valuable customer feedback, we made a change to have all Trader Joe's brand eggs come only from cage-free hens," Trader Joe's said on its website. "Since then, we have seen steady increases in our sales of cage-free eggs. Currently at Trader Joe's, 62 percent of the eggs we sell are cage-free. To put that in perspective, at this time, of all the eggs sold in the U.S. (across the variety of retailers), about 11 percent are cage-free."

"And as the supply-side of the egg business evolves to keep pace with a growing cage-free preference," Trader Joe's has committed to be completely cage-free within the next decade. Stores in select states — California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado — are expected to be cage-free by 2020.