McDonald's finally did something right

[HollyBird24]

I can't really blame McDonalds for the whole thing, they are just doing what pretty much everyone else is. I know that doesn't make it right, but you can't slam McDonalds without slamming every person who buys eggs from the stone, other restraunts who use eggs from factory farms etc. Thats about 95% of the population in Canada and the US. McDonalds has to make a profit, they can't do that by using expensive free range eggs from happy hens. There are too many people on this earth to feed without factory farming, do you honestly think small farms could feed the millions of people living in Canadian and American cities?

 

[deerman]

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Can blame them for misleading people , when they show were your eggs come from, then show free ranging hens.......thats wrong. Sad thing so many people believed it.

 

[halo]

I just ran to town and swung thru Mickey D's for a quick breakfast. The bad egg story hasnt hurt their business in the least. The drive thru line was all the way thru the parking lot and into the road.

Im glad I have McDonalds stock.

 

[HollyBird24]

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Can blame them for misleading people , when they show were your eggs come from, then show free ranging hens.......thats wrong. Sad thing so many people believed it.

True, people want to believe that. McDonalds is more then willing to help

 

[seminolewind]

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I agree. Even if they used a percentage of eggs from backyard farmers, and featured pictures of where some of their eggs come from from people like us.

 

[HollyBird24]

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I agree. Even if they used a percentage of eggs from backyard farmers, and featured pictures of where some of their eggs come from from people like us.

Thats so unrealisitc though, McDonalds is a HUGE corporation

 

[Mac in Wisco]

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Yes, it is, and decisions like that can really throw the industry for a loop.

From what I understand, the Sparboe facility in Iowa produced all of the eggs for McDonald's west of the Mississippi. That was probably several million hens devoted to production for McDonald's. You can't just flip a switch and turn off production. Those hens still need to be fed, they will still produce several million eggs a day. Another company can't just turn on production out of thin air either. It typically takes one year's worth of planning to go from forecasted needs to actual egg production.

So, it's more than likely that Cargill (McDonald's egg products supplier) has their hands on enough production to easily supply McDonald's egg products from other sources and divert Sparboe's eggs to other markets, otherwise such a decision would not have been made so quickly.

 

[Moochie]

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I know the workers do. McDonalds is a name.

McDonalds doest employ them their old supplier did...

I'm not talking about the McNasty's incompetent drive-thru workers. I'm talking about the suppliers, those sickos. There's no reason to treat lovely chickens with so much abuse unless they're not right in the head.

 

[Colored Egg Farmer]

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They didn't make much of a change. If they go to a different supplier they get the same, as that is the picture of commercial, conventional egg production in the U.S.

There were a few bad things shown, the most egregious being workers throwing live birds or one of the workers swinging a bird around over his head. The rest is neither here nor there. Cages? Debatable, everybody knows that they are used. Beak trimming? Also debatable. Filth? Maybe, maybe not.

I just watched the 20/20 report this evening with my 21 year old son. He commented how horrible that was. I asked him whether he felt we did a good job with our 2500 hens. He said we do much better than that, no comparison whatsoever... I then pointed out to him that we have birds that die and that I have to pick up carcasses. We always have rodents that we work to control. There are times when the flies get bad. There are times that I have to cull sick birds. I put the carcasses into our compost pile as well as carcasses from 100's of birds that we have slaughtered for dinner and compost them into fertilizer, so there are areas of our garden and farm that are littered with chicken bones from spreading finished compost.

Give somebody a camera and let them selectively film what I just described, compile it into a montage with some sad music, and they can make it look like a horror show.

totally agree with your Mac. Yes we have had rodent problems and sometimes flies. Heres a simple example. Farmer puts a few horses out in the pasture and it invites the flies. It doesn't mean there abused its natural. the same thing with putting your garbage out into your trash can. And your exactly right about the birds dieing. All chicken die. It doesn't matter if you have 10 or 10,000. What matters is how they did die. Another example. Your pets outside get attacked by a preditor. Feathers blood maybe a leg left behind. With a little tv magic you can make it look like a tragedy. I looked at there video and also how the reporters went into the hen house. Was it the same hen house? Idk but it didn't look as terrable as they undercover agents put it. And I sure didn't see as many flies. Do I like cage farming no. But Its something that needs to be lived with on my half as a chicken farmer. I'm just glad I'm able to save a few hens from the cage and let them have the ability to walk around our farm and not be just an egg laying machine.

Mcdonalds will go to a new supplier. but will they be much better? maybe I really doubt there going to go to everyones backyard and ask for there eggs. They may go cage free. But even that word can be abused in some cases.

 

[Fred's Hens]

If McDonalds make a corporate decision to buy an upgraded egg, from hens kept differently, and had to raise their prices 50 cents per sandwich, which would seem necessary and a business risk to be sure, it might take up to two years to make the conversion. There is no one geared up, at the snap of a finger, to supply an account of that size.

The supplier they are shifting to presently will merely be forced to shed a few customers to make room for McD. Those customers would find a welcome at Sparboe to take up the slack of having lost McD. And round and round we go. Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, indeed.

As long as the consumer is driven by the lowest price possible, whether at a grocery store or at a fast food joint, nothing is really going to change much.