Just from a brief lookup, Vital Farms seems pretty legit plus they have the Certified Humane label. But I like that their website lets you look at the particular farm on a live video feed! For example, link to where these eggs came from, Farmer Johnson’s farm🐓 I just loved to see the little ladies clucking around😊
It’s likely. There is no enforced definition of “pasture”, “open range” or “cage free”.
For example for meat chickens, “open range” just means 12 feet of open space at least once in their life. The rest of their life could be crammed in a building with thousands of others and it’s still “open range”
I sure hope that’s not the case! Well the lack of enforcement sucks bc it makes it hard for us consumers to make ethical decisions while out shopping. I was thinking “pasture-raised” “108 sq ft per hen” sounded good xD
You can read my full reply lower…but that isn’t the case with the Vital operations.
They require a minimum of 60 acres per operation with the land sectioned off and the flock rotated between parcels. Parcels and production have to meet certain, fairly rigorous, quality control standards or Vital can pull the contract and no longer will purchase eggs. Contracts renew every 5 years, and if it’s not to the QC standards and proper maintenance/upgrades aren’t maintained, the contract will be pulled.