Chickfila to END "no antibiotics ever" chicken

[storewanderer]

Yes, the subject line is correct. This chain made a pledge to sell chicken with "no antibiotics ever" in 2014. It is now ending that pledge.

The new pledge is something about no antibiotics important to human medicine. Whatever that means. And whoever concludes what constitutes "important." And the tract record and history of said antibiotics.

This is a poor move and deserves significant PR.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/c ... hicken.amp

[pseudo3d]

Yes, the subject line is correct. This chain made a pledge to sell chicken with "no antibiotics ever" in 2014. It is now ending that pledge.

The new pledge is something about no antibiotics important to human medicine. Whatever that means. And whoever concludes what constitutes "important." And the tract record and history of said antibiotics.

This is a poor move and deserves significant PR.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/c ... hicken.amp

These grand pledges like NAE chicken and cage free eggs (which Kroger has rolled back iirc) only makes sense for as long as prices remain stable.

If they can give the customer some relief in higher prices I'm all for it.

[babs]

Yes, the subject line is correct. This chain made a pledge to sell chicken with "no antibiotics ever" in 2014. It is now ending that pledge.

The new pledge is something about no antibiotics important to human medicine. Whatever that means. And whoever concludes what constitutes "important." And the tract record and history of said antibiotics.

This is a poor move and deserves significant PR.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/c ... hicken.amp

These grand pledges like NAE chicken and cage free eggs (which Kroger has rolled back iirc) only makes sense for as long as prices remain stable.

If they can give the customer some relief in higher prices I'm all for it.

Some states like Oregon, mandate cage free eggs. Really stupid law that just drives up prices.

[HCal]

Some states like Oregon, mandate cage free eggs. Really stupid law that just drives up prices.

But does it really? After California passed its cage free law, prices shot up because the industry wasn't ready (they were focused on fighting the law rather than preparing to follow it). However, over time, prices came back down to normal.

When cage free eggs are an option, they are more expensive simply because those who want them will be willing to pay extra for them. But when they are the norm, the price usually reverts to whatever everyone is willing to pay for eggs in general.

This studyhttps://openurl.ebsco.com/EPDB%3Agcd%3A ... 7356&crl=c suggests that the cost increase is 25-73 cents a dozen, or about 2 to 6 cents per egg, which is quite trivial in the context of current grocery inflation.

[storewanderer]

Some states like Oregon, mandate cage free eggs. Really stupid law that just drives up prices.

But does it really? After California passed its cage free law, prices shot up because the industry wasn't ready (they were focused on fighting the law rather than preparing to follow it). However, over time, prices came back down to normal.

When cage free eggs are an option, they are more expensive simply because those who want them will be willing to pay extra for them. But when they are the norm, the price usually reverts to whatever everyone is willing to pay for eggs in general.

This studyhttps://openurl.ebsco.com/EPDB%3Agcd%3A ... 7356&crl=c suggests that the cost increase is 25-73 cents a dozen, or about 2 to 6 cents per egg, which is quite trivial in the context of current grocery inflation.

Yes, it drives up prices, and all laws on cage free eggs should be repealed.

If a business wants to sell cage free eggs, the business can go ahead and do that. If a specific brand wants to come out and sell cage free eggs, let them do that.

The only "normal" on egg prices when cage free laws go into effect is a new "bloated" normal price.

When something is mandated, it enables the providers to take advantage of the retailers who in turn pass the price hike straight to the consumers. When all stores in state Z have to sell cage free eggs by January 1, 2020, there is a mad rush to get the logistics right and prices spike. The industry isn't ready to do the shift all at once. Politicians and activist groups do not understand how these industries work or understand how supply/demand work. The retailers and suppliers understand that, but when these laws are drawn up, the politicians who are completely captivated by these activist groups and "feeling good about something" will not even consider anything retailers and suppliers have to say.

If it is a different thing like Trader Joe's says we are going to sell all cage free eggs in our stores by January 1, 2022 then Trader Joe's can go out there and explore various supplier options and find suppliers who there is a mutual "want to work together" mindset and they can make it work on a mutually agreeable timeline at a mutually negotiated upon price. And eggs at Trader Joe's have been cage free for some time and at least in my area have never gone over 2.89 per dozen.

Then next Whole Foods comes along and says okay we want to sell all cage free eggs in our stores by January 1, 2023, then again they can work on it with the suppliers and everyone works together to mutually make it happen and at a price that is fair/negotiated.

Meanwhile if I am Kroger and I decide this thing of selling only cage free eggs by some arbitrary date is not important to my company or to my customers then I can again do what I want to do here. Kroger has MANY different cage free egg SKUs under the Simple Truth label sold chainwide (perhaps a larger variety than any other retailer in private label), they are again working with suppliers here and making it happen but not forcing it...

These mandates are never good- all mandates ever do is drive up prices for whatever the product in question is. Eggs are important and these cage free egg laws have driven up the cost of food significantly. As the current inflation problems on food are at the front of the mind of many consumers laws like this are not earning anyone any political points from the majority of the public.

It also appears the various chicken flu sicknesses that caused thousands of chickens to be killed in NorCal recently were caused by these cage free egg laws. Of course of the chickens with the flu roam around "cage free" then they will make many other chickens sick. If they are in a cage, they will only make the nearby chickens sick. That mess drove up prices in the past couple months significantly and in NorCal prices haven't come down yet. This poor political designed cage free egg law that forced so many states to go to cage free eggs all at once probably caused some oversight at the farms that caused the flu to spread a lot more than it should have.

[mbz321]

If they can give the customer some relief in higher prices I'm all for it.

[storewanderer]

If they can give the customer some relief in higher prices I'm all for it.

The thing is- many fast food chains actually already serve "no antibiotics ever" chicken. Subway, Carls Jr./Hardees, Chipotle, Panera, and various others.

This article explains better.

https://feedthemwisely.com/fast-food-re ... ntibiotics

I thought this was one of the areas where Chickfila was "higher quality."

They can do whatever they want to do... but my perception as a consumer is this represents a decline in their standards. I suspect most consumers will not care.

[HCal]

When something is mandated, it enables the providers to take advantage of the retailers who in turn pass the price hike straight to the consumers. When all stores in state Z have to sell cage free eggs by January 1, 2020, there is a mad rush to get the logistics right and prices spike. The industry isn't ready to do the shift all at once.

California passed the cage-free law in 2018, and it took effect in 2022. 4 years is plenty of time to sort out the supply chain and avoid doing a shift "all at once". The only reason there was a "mad rush" is because the industry spent all their efforts on trying to get the law overturned, and when every single one of those attempts failed, they were caught unprepared.

I remember some stores posting signs blaming the law for the higher egg prices. But customers saw right through that as other stores had lower prices. Blaming the politicians might work if this had been a regular law, but it doesn't work well for a voter-approved referendum.

[storewanderer]

When something is mandated, it enables the providers to take advantage of the retailers who in turn pass the price hike straight to the consumers. When all stores in state Z have to sell cage free eggs by January 1, 2020, there is a mad rush to get the logistics right and prices spike. The industry isn't ready to do the shift all at once.

California passed the cage-free law in 2018, and it took effect in 2022. 4 years is plenty of time to sort out the supply chain and avoid doing a shift "all at once". The only reason there was a "mad rush" is because the industry spent all their efforts on trying to get the law overturned, and when every single one of those attempts failed, they were caught unprepared.

I remember some stores posting signs blaming the law for the higher egg prices. But customers saw right through that as other stores had lower prices. Blaming the politicians might work if this had been a regular law, but it doesn't work well for a voter-approved referendum.

The prices went up overnight once when they implemented the SSFES or whatever it was packaging and went up a second time overnight when they implemented the cage free eggs. I watched the same thing happen in Nevada as it followed the CA law (years later). The signs certain retailers posted blaming the legislation for the price increases were correct. Customers didn't see through that- the groups who pushed to pass the egg law and the politicians freaked out at those signs and demanded the signs be removed before enough people could see them to figure out what was going on.

They could have put something into the legislation at the producer level to control the price spikes or perhaps given the producers funding to alleviate price hikes so this would not hurt the consumer and significantly increase spend on WIC programs (huge buyer of eggs). But these politicians and special interest groups don't care about the consumer.

These laws are bad for consumers and only serve to make certain special interest groups feel good and make politicians appear as if they have accomplished something. I guess they have but there are a lot of other things they could accomplish that would do a lot more good, like doing something about the whole insurance mess (and at this point I'm not just referring to health insurance).

In the free market cage free eggs do not sell all that well; there is a limited consumer interest for that product and typically it is with boutique style eggs; Organic, Free Range, Omega, etc. etc. etc. The only way this product sells to mass is if consumers are forced to buy it through legislation that bans cage produced eggs. People are becoming increasingly frustrated with being told what to do and what they can and can't have and are starting to really push back at these things as they see more and more of them are causing additional unnecessary price hikes. As money becomes tighter and tighter thanks to the inflation situation, this push back will accelerate.

But back to the topic of this post Chickfila made the decision in 2014 to go to "no antibiotics ever" chicken. Their product has increased in price since then (back in 2014 in much of the South you could still get a Chickfila Original Chicken Sandwich at 2.99 and a small fries cost like 1.45 or something). Recently their price increases have been pretty severe. I expect part of paying extra is due to getting this "no antibiotics ever" chicken. So to me this is a downgrade in their standards. My perception of the overall "value" of their product offer declines as a result of them taking away this "no antibiotics ever" pledge. I think they are making a mistake.

But on the egg topic if some restaurant/retailer/whoever decided to go back on their promise to switch to cage free eggs, it would not change my opinion on their value offer or product quality in any way.

[veteran+]

Some states like Oregon, mandate cage free eggs. Really stupid law that just drives up prices.

But does it really? After California passed its cage free law, prices shot up because the industry wasn't ready (they were focused on fighting the law rather than preparing to follow it). However, over time, prices came back down to normal.

When cage free eggs are an option, they are more expensive simply because those who want them will be willing to pay extra for them. But when they are the norm, the price usually reverts to whatever everyone is willing to pay for eggs in general.

This studyhttps://openurl.ebsco.com/EPDB%3Agcd%3A ... 7356&crl=c suggests that the cost increase is 25-73 cents a dozen, or about 2 to 6 cents per egg, which is quite trivial in the context of current grocery inflation.

But...............................I do not think it really matters much in the grand scheme of things. Organic, cage free, antibiotics, Non GMOs, etc.............................people are eating themselves into a shorter life span. If any of this really mattered to the larger population MOST fast food establishments would be the first to go out of business.

When food became convenient and easy and fast, our life spans began to slowly decline. We can all deny it passionately but it does not change the results.