Allegations made against Australia’s egg industry for false egg labelling
Claims have been made by egg farmers, animal welfare activists and consumer groups that some eggs sold on the Australian market are being falsely labelled “free range” in order to get a higher price.
Animal Liberation spokeswoman Wendy Parsons told ABC TV’s Landline program that many of the nation’s biggest free range producers also have battery hens and she believes substitution is rife.
“The statistics, the surveys prove it and it doesn’t take Einstein to work out that there’s something very wrong with the way the industry’s working,” she said.
Free range farmer Tom Fryar has told Landline as there is no legal definition of the term ‘free range’, and he wants legislation to be tightened.
“Probably one of the clauses should be that you should either be free range, barn or caged, not cage barn and free range all on the same farm because probably of a substitution issue,” he said.
“If you haven’t got enough free range eggs, it’s too easy to go and get the eggs from that barn and pop them into a free range carton and we all know that happens.”
The Australian Egg Corporation says allegations of large scale substitution are false.
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