Animal welfare
We're committed to having high animal welfare standards in our supply chain and we work with our suppliers to achieve this.
For example, at the start of 2022 we started working with our milk supplier to directly engage dairy farmers who supply us with fresh milk. This includes offering free herd health assessments to help farmers raise animal welfare standards even further.
Eggs
More than 80% of our total global sales (food and drink) come from the UK which is also where we sell the most food. As of April 2023, in the UK 100% of our whole shell eggs and eggs used as an ingredient are free range.
In the U.S., Poland and the Republic of Ireland we believe we are close to sourcing 100% cage-free eggs in these markets and are in the process of validating this data. In our other European markets, we are on track to achieve this by the end of 2025. In our Asia and the Middle East markets cage-free egg production and supply is limited.
We remain committed to only sourcing cage-free eggs in our markets where we sell food and are working closely with partners, suppliers, and other stakeholders to identify the best long-term viable solutions. For instance, in China we are working with an external animal welfare organisation to help review our options in support of our commitment.
While we are making progress towards our global commitment in some markets, collecting and combining egg usage data from multiple partners operating across diverse geographies make it difficult to provide a worldwide average at this time. We are committed to only publishing validated data and ensuring data we receive from franchise partners is consistent across global markets. Our intention is to report on our global cage-free progress by market by the end of 2023. Where we can do it earlier, we will publish updates.