Whether you’re new to organic or have been eating it for decades, here is a very likely scenario when you go to buy eggs.
You stand in the refrigerated section of the market, look at all of options, check out the prices and make a decision largely based on the packaging of each brand.
Some have attractive pictures of rolling farmland, others show actual farmers, some have photos of the animals. Most certainly, the brands are using buzz words such as “cage-free”, “sunlit porches”, “omega 3-s” or “heritage breed”.
Are these brands being falsely deceptive?
I don’t believe so at all. They are trying to make the packaging as attractive as possible, and rightly so. I would do the exact same thing.
While brand recognition and price are key factors, what the packaging looks like and the emotional reaction that it has on you can heavily influence purchasing decisions.
As I have written about before, all organic eggs are NOT the same — all birds are fed differently and are treated differently — but people forget this and may get seduced by wholesome, folksy packaging.
So, I took a sampling of 8 different organic egg brands and pulled their ratings from the Cornucopia’s Organic Egg Scorecard to see how they stacked up versus the attractiveness of the packaging.
The Organic Egg Scorecard classifies each brand into one of five categories:
“5-Egg” Rating: “Exemplary” – Beyond organic
“4-Egg” Rating: “Excellent” – Organic promoting outdoor access
“3-Egg” Rating: “Good to Very Good” – Organic, complying with minimum USDA standards
“2-Egg” Rating: “Fair” – Some questions remain concerning compliance with organic standards
“1-Egg” Rating: “Industrial Organics” – No meaningful outdoor access and/or non-transparent
Here is what I found.
VITAL FARMS === 4-EGG RATING

Read more »