The Humane Society of the U.S. filed complaints with federal agencies against IHOP, accusing the chain of misleading consumers about the treatment of chickens who produce the chain's eggs.
The Humane Society of the U.S. filed complaints with federal agencies against IHOP, accusing the chain of misleading consumers about the treatment of chickens who produce the chain's eggs.
Do people who go to the International House of Pancakes really care how the chickens who provide all the eggs for all those breakfast meals are kept?
The Humane Society of the U.S. is certainly hoping enough do, which is why the animal welfare organization is raising the volume of its campaign against the restaurant chain. On Wednesday it filed complaints with the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission accusing the chain and its parent company, DineEquity Inc., of making "false and misleading statements" concerning the conditions in which the chickens who produce the eggs that supply the chain are kept.
The society alleges that contrary to statements the companies make on their websites about the cruelty-free conditions in which the chickens are maintained, in reality the fowl are kept in extremely small "battery cages" that don't permit them much movement.
An excerpt from the Humane Society's press release:
"The only thing more jarring than IHOP's false statements is the amount of animal cruelty in its supply chain," stated Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The HSUS. "It's time for IHOP to follow the lead of its competitors and start purchasing and selling cage-free eggs."
Last month, The HSUS launched a national campaign publicly urging IHOP to move away from exclusively purchasing eggs from hens confined in cages—a modest step that many of the company's competitors (including Denny's, Burger King and Wendy's) have already taken.
In the first few days of the campaign, tens of thousands of people urged the company to move away from only purchasing eggs from caged hens. In response, IHOP issued a statement making—as The HSUS' complaints contend—false and misleading statements to the public regarding the way animals in its supply chain are treated, including that its food is "cruelty free."
As The HSUS' complaints outline, the battery cages used to produce eggs for IHOP are inherently cruel, providing each hen less space than a single sheet of paper to live on for her entire life. This extreme confinement practice is so cruel that IHOP's home state of California has criminalized the use of battery cages in egg production (effective 2015); this week, Michigan enacted a similar law.
The Associated Press has a brief statement from an IHOP spokesman:
The company declined to talk about the egg issue but spokesman Dan Ischy issued a one-sentence statement: "While we are not aware of any lawsuit, IHOP is committed to the humane and dignified treatment of animals in our food supply chain."
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