78% of PH restaurant chains pledge pivot to cage-free eggs amid growing demand – report

MANILA, Philippines – Around 80% of restaurant chains in the Philippines have policies in place to phase out caged eggs amid a growing demand for more sustainable food choices, according to a scorecard of global nongovernment organization Lever Foundation.

According to the foundation’s 2025 Philippines Restaurant Industry Cage-Free Egg Scorecard, 47 restaurant chains representing 11,277 locations have pledged to fully transition to using cage-free eggs in their meals. This translates to around 78% of all chain restaurant locations nationwide.

Lever Foundation said the scorecard evaluates 67 of the Philippines’ leading restaurant brands. This includes the likes of Tony Tan Caktiong’s Jollibee Group (Greenwich, Chowking, Mang Inasal, Jollibee), 333 Foods (BreadTalk and Nanyang), the Max’s Group (Max’s and Pancake House), and the Po family’s Century Pacific Foods (Shakey’s, Peri-Peri Chicken, Potato Corner).

Brands such as Nanyang and Peri-Peri Chicken got an “A” score since they already transitioned to using cage-free eggs. Meanwhile, other brands such as Shakey’s, Jollibee, Max’s, Chowking, Pizza Hut, Subway, and Burger King have already set timelines to implement full cage-free sourcing by the 2030s.

The 2025 scorecard categorizes brands on a four-tier scale:

• A – 100% cage-free egg implementation achieved in the Philippines
• B – global cage-free egg commitment and timeline
• C – commitment and timeline to go cage-free has been set for Philippine market
• F – no cage-free egg policy in the Philippines

Cage-free systems allow hens to freely move and engage in their natural behaviors, which are often restricted in the usual battery cage systems.

Lever Foundation’s sustainability program lead Robyn del Rosario said that the latest scorecard rankings shows that animal welfare, food safety, and sustainability are key business priorities for the Philippine restaurant industry.

““The path forward is clear, and we’re confident more brands will catch up with this industry-wide shift in the year ahead. Cage-free sourcing is not just a more ethical choice — it’s becoming the baseline expectation from consumers and the competitive standard in the Philippines,” Del Rosario said.

A 2024 survey by Tokyo-based consumer research firm GMO Research found that 83% of Filipino consumers want their food companies to source eggs from cage-free environments, while 95% of respondents agree that hens should not be kept in cages.

Around 89% of Filipino respondents also said they are willing to pay a higher price for cage-free eggs since they believe these are safer to eat and have better quality.

“The price tolerance of most respondents is about a 10% to 25% increase in supermarkets (76%) and a 5% to 10% increase in restaurant meals or packaged food products that contain eggs (74%),” Lever Foundation wrote in its summary of GMO Research’s findings. – Rappler.com