Truth in Advertising?

Family Farm.  Old Fashioned.  Gathered by hand.  What images do these phrases convey?  A small, quaint little farm complete with 1880s farmhouse, red barn, silo, and a big tree in front yard with a tire swing holding a cute little girl with pigtails?  How about ten 50 ft. by 300 foot long buildings each holding 10-20,000 laying hens pecking around at manure encrusted dirt and each other?  How about dozens of low-wage brown-skinned workers "hand gathering" the eggs?  Honestly (and that is what we are about here), the preponderance of feel-good words on egg cartons has to be some of the most flagrant violations of the concept of truth in advertising (which is only a concept since it is not enforced).  As egg producers ourselves, we get a lot of cartons recycled back to us from other companies (we only use the recycled cartons for CSA sales).  We chuckle whenever we are sorting cartons at the cr*p that is in print on these things. Here is some of the B.S. gleaned from those cartons and the companies websites:

Words and catchy phrases gleaned from Judy's Family Farm (owned by Petaluma Farms, which also owns Rock Island, Gold Circle Farms, and Uncle Eddie's brands) include:  "old-fashioned way", "quality control" (like any egg producer would not be concerned about quality), "we care about our hens", "same as my great grandfather" (he had the football field size barns, conveyor belt feeders, and automatic waterers a hundred years ago?), "free to roam" (inside barns with thousands of other chickens pecking at them), "fresh and pure water" (who would give their hens contaminated water??).  Now who is Judy anyways and why does her website not show a single picture of the farm nor the chickens??  If her farm is a "family farm", then what is a corporate farm?  Couldn't you call Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) a family farm just because they have a descendant or two on staff?

From Chino Valley Ranchers (which also owns brands Veg-A-Fed, Mothers Free Range, and private labels for companies such as Trader Joe's) words and phrases include: "chickens healthy, happy, and stress-free (how do they measure this?), "100% pure" (what does this mean, exactly?), "community houses" (does 20,000 birds in a house constitute a community or chaos?), "like back home on the farm" (what?!?), "never use hormones" (this is the biggest B.S. of all since hormones are NOT ALLOWED IN EGG PRODUCING CHICKENS, so please companies, stop saying hormone free when you can't use them anyways!), "clean, natural water" (again, who is going to give their hens dirty, unnatural water?), "vegetarian diet" (don't get me started, hens are omnivores and like to eat bugs, worms, rodents, lizards, etc.  This claim basically means the chickens are indoors their whole life where they don't have access to things found on pasture), "air fresh & clean" (these ranches are East of L.A., need I say more?), "hens eat, exercise, and socialize to their health's contents", "hand packed" (can robots pack eggs?), "farm fresh" (can 2 weeks old before they show up at the grocery store be considered fresh, moreover, can an egg factory be called a farm?).  On their website is only one single picture of a few of their hundreds of thousands of chickens and not a single picture of one of their multiple "farms".  Who are these "ranchers" and why don't they have names or faces?

The behemoth NuCal Foods (which mostly private labels for brands such as Horizon Organic, Clover Stornetta, and Egg Lands Best, but also owns brands Cage Free, California's Finest Eggs, Becky brand (arrgh, my name!), Santa Rosa Egg Farms, Nulaid, Crack a Smile, and others) has a smattering of words & phrases that include: "we have created an environment for our hens that protects them from the elements, disease, and predators..."  (I'm sorry, but the elements of California?  Really, our Mediterranean climate can hardly be called elements.  And disease comes from crowded conditions and contact with feces, so keeping thousands in cages or in large barns is the opposite of disease control), "best tasting egg in America" (who were the chef judges you paid to say that?), "free-roaming" (meaning not in cages but still with 20-30,000 birds in a 1/3 acre size building), "spacious pens" (yes they are big, but when there are that many birds in a building, you could hardly call is spacious, much less a pen), "lead the industry in advanced animal husbandry practices" (what we do is advanced animal husbandry, allowing animals to enjoy their natural instincts, forage for their own food, eat a diversified diet, and live OUTSIDE).

To top it all off, the pictures most of these egg brands display are always of dancing chickens, frolicking outside or of little girls hand feeding a few hens.  I have seen only one company actually show a picture on the label of the actual gigantic barns that their chickens live in.  The irony in that case is the picture could hardly be called appealing and might be too truthful.  Even though they have lush pastures surrounding those barns, they never let the chickens out.

So in our efforts to be truthful and as transparent as possible, our new egg cartons will simply mention the two practices that we uphold, "pasture-raised" and "certified organic".  We will use no adjectives or meaningless phrases and the cartoon drawing of chickens on the label is from an actual photo taken on our farm.  We will print the website on the cartons where customers can go and find more information, including lots of pictures, detailed descriptions of our practices, and eventually some short video clips.  We hope the simple truth and transparency will attract customers and encourage others to insist on that level of transparency from other producers.  If egg producers and other livestock producers don't get busy educating customers about the realities of their production systems and be truthful about it, then more restrictive regulations will be coming down the pipeline, ones that ultimately could hurt us all.  But that discussion is for another post....

Comments

[Tom Stewart]

I too will raise free-range eggs (need to get the chickens first). But I can not belive the misinformation some people have. I work with a woman who will not eat brown eggs! Why? The eggs are brown because the chickens were raised on a dirt floor!
Go figure.

[Lesie]

Love this post and your whole site (which I just discovered and will try to catch up on soon)! My husband and I bought a 115 acre farm north of DC after being raised inside the beltway and then starting as "farmette farmers" ... Now we are so proud of our two preschoolers - compassionate animal lovers who also know where their healthy food comes from. We don't eat much store bought meat, only occasional fish (I too was freaked by the PBS show on orcas n salmon). So far we've raised meat chickens, rabbits and hunted for venison. We'd like to get a few young calves for exactly the reasons you mention. So much to learn but so rewarding. THANK YOU for the great education!

[denise]

i've thought about this so many times... sheesh - truly annoying stuff. thanks for your post. where do you sell your eggs? also, what's the address to your website noted in your post.

[Throwback at Trapper Creek]

We found the same thing when we sold eggs and used recycled cartons for our CSA customers. One "local" Washington company who sells in the Portland area, had at least 7 different lines of eggs. White, Brown, Organic, Natural, Free-Range, Omega-3, and some odd name called Fry & Try. All were from the same company, and a quick glance at their website showed battery houses, and discarded cages in the cattle pastures.

With so many hens, and so many employees in this "small" family business, I'm sure if the organic feed ran out, the organic hens were fed what was on hand.

I had to buy two dozen eggs this winter to tide us over, I purchased Organic Valley, and while the eggs were OK, they were not in any way large eggs, at least 4 per dozen were pee wee size according to our scale. Our hens picked back up and I never did use all of those eggs. They ended up as cat food.

[Homegrown Evolution]

Excellent post! Some time ago I did a little photoshop spoof of what an honest egg carton should look like:

http://www.homegrownevolution.com/2007/10/open-letter-to-trader-joes.html

[E Leb]

Thank you for debunking some of the common "natural" california egg producers. Advertising can be so sleazy, but not many folks think that it would go so far as egg cartons.

We are looking for an egg CSA in the Bay Area and I would love to support you. Any chances you do business in the East Bay??

Thanks for your great blog!

[BobPixel]

Rebecca, as a former vegetarian who became uncomfortable with buying super-market meat, all packaged up and emotionally sanitized, I'm really appreciating your blog.

I killed my first meat animal yesterday. It was a beloved chicken named "Gavi." She dressed out to more meat than I've ever seen in a store-bought, plastic wrapped bird.

I killed her specifically to close the gap between the fact that I eat meat now and I must be honest with myself about what meat is: the flesh of a creature that was one alive.

The experience is really too raw for me to have any metaphysical grasp, yet. It's still in the "I did this thing" phase of processing. Being a "killer" has dropped a new blob of energy into my soul and it isn't finding a place to rest.

I might turn to vegan-ism. I might continue to be honest to my omnivorous nature. I am committed to continuing to learn how to move with integrity in this world, though.

Kate, thank you for pointing out Rebecca's blog to me.

[kate]

I LOVE your blog!

Where is your farm?

I'm sure it is on here somewhere, but it wasn't clear to me as a casual reader.

Thank you for doing this!

[Rebecca T. of HonestMeat]

Adam (& others)-
1) I wrote this post exactly because I can't stand fake or feel-good advertising that dupes customers into buying into the industrial model. I don't know how much supermarkets are complicit in this, but they too seem to be throwing around a bunch of words on their private labeled products and marketing materials that obfuscate the truth.
2) I would like to see some sort of certification for free-range, but the government doesn't always do this well. Voluntary certification, similar to where organics were before the feds stepped in, seems to work fairly well. The government typically waters down voluntary efforts, so perhaps they should stay out of it. Also, I don't think producers will start using the words "pasture-raised" unless their chickens are out on grass. Whereas free-range can mean free to walk about, you can't really say pasture-raised without the presence of pasture (at least I hope not!).
3) Prop 2 was needed because of the lack of transparency in the industry. If the industry continues to remain hidden and mysterious, more restrictive regulations are likely to follow because consumers don't like to be kept in the dark or lied to. It is very possible that groups will work to eradicate animal agriculture altogether, which will hurt our business, obviously.

[adam]

Hey Rebbecca,
1) Do you feel the problem with these marketing devises is that they are dishonest/non-transparent, contentious labeling, redundant rhetoric (like the 'hormone-free' label), a little bit of all of the above? Do you see supermarkets complicit in this system?

2) Do you think the government should set standards to certify 'free-range', not allow people to use such a label, or not interfere with such marketing? Also, do you imagine that in a few years people could be using 'pasture-raised' in a similarly dishonest way to appeal to disillusioned consumers?

3) Finally, I'm curious about the 'restrictive regulations' that have already been passed that you are referring to. Does this include Prop 2? And how would they 'hurt' your operation if it's as sustainable and high-welfare as you say. Taxation/certification for oversight/monitoring?

[rich]

You hit one of our sore spots with this. Unfortunately, it's not just the big producers that are capitalizing on the feel-good labeling...our local Portland markets are full of conventionally fed, near-confinement raised hens that are plugged, and priced, at the organic rate. Maddening.