UK supermarket group Sainsbury’s has said it plans to phase out selling battery eggs by 2012.


The retailer said that it planned only to sell free range or barn eggs. Barn eggs are laid by hens that are kept in large sheds which have access to daylight, whereas caged eggs are produced by battery hens which are kept in cages and have no natural light.


The retailer added that a precise date for the changeover had not been set, but it expected to complete it “well ahead” of 2012.


However, the decision came after the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirmed that there have been instances where caged eggs have been fraudulently labelled as free range and organic.


Sainsbury’s said that it could guarantee the provenance of its free range eggs, and it had a labelling process that could be traced back to individual farms.

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