Activists up in arms, flag ‘double standards’ of food services giant
NEW DELHI: The Bharat Initiative for Accountability (BIA), a coalition of 15 Indian animal welfare organizations, staged a protest at Jantar Mantar on Friday, demanding that multinational food services giant Sodexo fulfill its global commitment to sourcing cage-free eggs in India. BIA alleges that despite Sodexo’s pledge to transition to 100% cage-free eggs worldwide by 2025, the company has made minimal progress in India, with less than 1% of its eggs meeting the standard.
Meanwhile, the company has successfully implemented this shift in Europe and North America, according to BIA.
“They made a cage-free commitment in 2016, globally across all operations, and we see that they’ve made progress in the European Union and the United States. But here in India, they have made only 0.41% progress till the reporting of last year,” said Mehak Ahal, Senior Manager of Corporate Engagement at BIA. “We are protesting to remind them that Indians deserve the same as customers abroad.”
Ahal further highlighted the plight of the hens, saying, “These egg-laying hens are raised in wire mesh cages where they can’t even spread their wings. They spend their entire lives in less than an A4-sized sheet of paper, cramped in with four to eight other hens.” With just nine months remaining until the company’s self-imposed deadline, BIA is ramping up pressure on multinational corporations to ensure they uphold their commitments in India with the same urgency as they do in other regions.
“Sodexo claims to be a sustainability leader, yet it continues to source eggs from cruel battery cages in India while transitioning to cage-free eggs in the West,” said Aarti Bhavana, Director of Corporate Engagement at BIA.
“This blatant double standard is unacceptable. India is not a dumping ground for unethical products. Sodexo has viable solutions at its disposal—it’s time to act before the December deadline.”
Sodexo is yet to respond to the protest or the allegations.