Coles awards for big corporate egg producers

Here's an article from the Bendigo Advertiser.

Bears Lagoon (near Bendigo) chicken farm Novo Farm Pride has been announced as one of three overall winners of the Coles Brand Supplier of the Year.

It won the award with two other egg producers, Queensland’s Sunny Queen and New South Wales’ Pace Farm, because of its moves to sell cage-free eggs.

Novo Farm Pride opened another three state-of-the-art sheds in October last year, doubling the amount of birds at the operation to 180,000.

The company has worked with Coles to define the free-range standard for eggs.

"Free-range eggs have been growing double digits every year for the past five to 10 years, so through discussions with Coles we worked together to expand the farms capacity," national sales and marketing manager Ian Savenake said.

"We have been able to hold sessions and work with Coles to define the free-range standard and meet consumer demand for our welfare-friendly eggs.

"The award is recognition for the whole team from the farmers to people on the grading floor, to admin, to sales." Coles merchandise director John Durkan said the producers had shown leadership in the egg industry by making the move to produce cage-free eggs.
If these eggs were labelled as cage free there would be no issue with consumers or the free range sector of the egg industry. But they are labelled as free range which does not meet consumer expectations or the standards of legimate free range ergg farmers.