25 October 2017

Wyndham Hotel Group Commits to Cage-Egg Free Globally

Largest hotel chain in the world makes groundbreaking commitment to eliminate cages from its egg supply chain

Wyndham Worldwide Corporation has announced a monumental global cage-free policy for all of its hotels’ and resorts’ supply chain. This latest announcement is part of a worldwide movement to free hens from cages. SAFE worked with The Humane League and other members of the global coalition, the Open Wing Alliance (OWA), to enable this positive global commitment.

“The commitment will transition all of the company’s 8,100 hotels, to source 100% cage-free eggs by 2025; a positive step for hens worldwide,” says SAFE campaigns director, Mandy Carter. “This is one of the farthest-reaching international commitments to eliminate cages from the egg industry in terms of its geographical scope and shows how seriously businesses are taking the cruelty of caging hens for eggs.”

As the largest hotel chain in the world, Wyndham’s commitment will impact its locations in 66 different countries on six continents. In New Zealand Wyndham currently has ten hotels, with plans to expand.

By law, conventional battery cages must be removed by egg producers by 2022. However, the NZ egg industry was set to replace these cages with equally cruel colony cages. Egg-laying hens are crammed into wire cages and are only given space about the size of an iPad on which to live their entire lives. The cages prevent hens from exercising many of their natural behaviors including fully stretching their wings and dustbathing.

Wyndham joins other companies in New Zealand, including Wendy’s, Pita Pit, McDonald’s, Burger King and supermarket giants Countdown and Foodstuffs who have either ended their use of cage eggs or committed to a specific phase-out date. The decisions of these NZ food retailers will lead to a drop of around 50 percent of cage egg production.

Wyndham Worldwide’s global cage-free announcement comes amidst the Open Wing Alliance’s success in asking companies to listen to concerned consumers and go cage-free, enabling a wave of companies worldwide to announce plans to convert exclusively to cage-free eggs in a variety of industries, including global policies from General Mills, InterContinental Hotels Group, Compass Group, PepsiCo and Mondelez International.

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