Yum! Brands, the world’s largest restaurant company, with close to 50,000 locations globally across its KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and The Habit Burger Grill brands, today released a global policy to transition to 100% cage-free eggs in the majority of its locations by 2026, and globally by 2030. This commitment is set to benefit millions of hens in its global supply chain, and follows the largest public cage-free campaign to date, led by the Open Wing Alliance.
Aaron Ross, Vice President Policy and Strategy, The Humane League, said: “We think this is the most impactful cage-free commitment of all time, since Yum! Brands is the world’s largest restaurant company. Consumers all around the world have been demanding better for animals, and companies like Yum! Brands are taking action,” says Aaron Ross.
Prior to this global commitment, Taco Bell, part of the Yum! Brands group, officially went 100% cage-free in North America and committed to going cage-free in Europe. On August 26, 2021, Yum! Brands released a cage-free policy for the US, Western Europe, and other leading markets. The new global policy commits the company to sourcing 100% cage-free eggs and egg products in more than 150 countries and regions. This transition will be complete by the end of 2030. In the US, Yum! Brands will work to ensure that at least 25% of its eggs come from cage-free hens by the start of 2023, 50% by the start of 2024, 75% by the start of 2025 and 100% by 2026. The fast food corporation also agreed to provide annual progress reporting to ensure transparency.
“Due to the massive size of Yum! Brands’ supply chain, this monumental commitment to exclusively source cage-free eggs will reduce the suffering of millions of hens raised to lay eggs throughout the world,” says Alexandria Beck, Director of Open Wing Alliance. “This policy involves some of the most influential fast food chains and it’s evident that cage-free is becoming the future of the industry.”
The public campaign leading up to Yum! Brands’ commitment was led by member organizations of the Open Wing Alliance, a coalition united to improve the welfare of chickens raised in factory farms worldwide. Activists from 77 influential animal protection organizations in 63 countries joined forces to demand better from Yum! Brands on behalf of its customers and the egg-laying hens suffering daily within its supply chain. Thousands of supporters all around the world joined the effort by taking hundreds of thousands of digital actions, urging Yum! Brands to go cage-free. Live protests also took place—from Serbia, to Nigeria, to Taiwan, and beyond.
