General Mills Sets A Goal To Buy Only Cage-Free Eggs By 2025

Following moves by several other major food companies and restaurants, General Mills has announced a new goal of only buying cage-free eggs in the U.S.

The change will be far from immediate: General Mills has set a date of 2025 for the effort to reach fruition, reports Reuters. This is the first time a packaged food company has even given a deadline for such a move, however.

General Mills previously said in July that it was working on going entirely cage-free with eggs used in its products, but didn’t give any details on when that would happen.

Unsurprisingly, the move is being met with approval by animal rights groups.

“General Mills is further demonstrating that confining hens in cages has no place within our food system. We applaud the company for its great work,” said Josh Balk, senior food policy director for the Humane Society of the United States.

Rival company Kellogg was about a month ahead of General Mills this time, after promising in October that it would only use eggs from cage-free hens. In the restaurant world, Panera promised to source only cage-free eggs by 2020; McDonald’s pledged to go the cage-free route for all eggs served in its 16,000 U.S. and Canadian locations within 10 years; Taco Bell is aiming for cage-free eggs by the end of 2016 and Burger King is working toward a 2017 deadline for its cage-free initiative.