7-Eleven, Woodman's Markets and C&S Wholesale Grocers Join Cage-Free Egg Supply Movement

7-Eleven, Woodman’s Markets and C&S Wholesale Grocers have recently joined a growing group of food retailers, restaurant chains and food manufacturers with plans to source only cage-free eggs. 

7-Eleven will work with its suppliers toward a goal of sourcing only cage-free eggs by 2025, based on available supply for all stores in the U.S. and Canada.

"7-Eleven cares about the treatment of animals and switching to cage-free eggs demonstrates our concern," says Jesus Delgado-Jenkins, executive vice president and chief merchandising officer for 7-Eleven. "We believe that it is becoming important to our customers for us to serve more humanely-sourced eggs." 

Woodman’s Markets and its supply partner, S&R Egg Farm, have also made plans to transition to 100 percent  cage-free eggs.

Woodman’s, which is employee-owned and headquartered in Janesville, Wis., operates 16 retail locations throughout Wisconsin and Illinois. Under its new plan, Woodman’s will exclusively sell cage-free eggs by 2025.

S&R Egg Farm, founded in 1958 and based in Whitewater, Wis., has grown from a 12,000-bird operation to now having nearly 4 million egg-laying hens across its 800 acres of farmland that stretch across the vast countryside of Southeastern Wisconsin.

S&R has established a goal of switching all of its hens to cage-free—something it aims to accomplish by 2025.

“Woodman’s continues to evolve to better meet it’s customer’s needs, and this commitment to go cage-free by 2025 is no exception,” says Clint Woodman, Woodman’s vice president. “We’re proud to team up with our supply partners at S&R to make this commitment.”

S&R’s vice president of sales and marketing, Sean Delano, noted cage-free as being the future of egg production. “America’s farmers and ranchers have always been some of our country’s most innovative individuals, and as the demand for cage-free egg production from our nation’s food retailers grows, S&R is proud to evolve into a cage-free company,” says Delano. “We look forward to working with our retail partners and other stakeholders to make this switch.”

C&S Wholesale Grocers, Inc will also join many in the grocery industry in pledging to shift to cage-free egg procurement for its private label brands by 2025; the remainder of the eggs procured by C&S, which are supplied to its grocery partners, will be aligned with the retailers’ cage-free policies, as well. C&S expresses its support for the egg industry’s overall effort to move in this direction and will assess a quicker transition if supply levels could support its consumer demand.

7-Eleven, Woodman’s Markets and C&S Wholesale Grocers join retailers like Tops, H-E-B, Alex Lee, SpartanNash, Gelson's Markets, Brookshire Grocery Company, Walmart, Meijer, Raley's, Weis Markets, Ingles Markets, Bashas’ Supermarkets, Supervalu, Kroger and Kings Food Markets who have made the commitment to cage-free egg supplies.