Private Label

Private-label, or store-brand, eggs rated with one egg are sold by grocers or distributors who have the obvious desire of wanting to grow their presence in the organic marketplace. Unfortunately, there is an inherent limitation in private-label organic products: organic consumers tend to want to know where their food is coming from and how it is produced, and private-label products are anonymous by their very nature.

Our research indicates that the vast majority of organic eggs for private label brands are produced on industrial farms that house hundreds of thousands of birds and do not grant the birds meaningful outdoor access.

If these grocery chains want to truly express a commitment to organics, and communicate this tangibly to their customer base, we would encourage them to specify on their label which egg producers and cooperatives they are "partnering with" and to fully participate, transparently, in The Cornucopia Institute research study and scorecard. This will give consumers valuable information to judge their ethical approach and simultaneously afford farmers more marketplace security, as it will make it much more difficult to change suppliers quickly for a few cents per dozen.

So the bottom-line for private-label organic products, whether eggs or any other commodity, is "buyer beware." We encourage consumers to be vigilant and contact stores to confirm who is supplying their private-label eggs or to just pay an extra quarter or two for name-brand eggs from farmers and brands that are willing to be open with them and who share their values.

Although Whole Foods participated transparently in Cornucopia's process to rate organic dairy and soy products they declined when receiving our questionnaire concerning organic eggs saying that they were not willing to share their list of suppliers.

They answered one question with, probably, the least consequence to consumers in our study. They failed to provide any answers to the remaining 21 questions.

We would encourage loyal Whole Foods shoppers to contact the company, through their website, and let them know that if they want your continued patronage, for their 365 brand eggs, that they should release their sourcing information to The Cornucopia Institute.

We assure all companies that their confidential business information, that the majority of namebrand egg producers have been willing to share, will be held in strict confidence.