Tyler Jones, owner of Afton Field Farms sheds some light on those confusing labels, as well as his tips on how to make shopping for eggs a little easier.
Local farms: “Chances are the farm is smaller and chickens are looked after more responsibly,” says Jones. It’s also worth asking your grocery store about its generic label because some stores supply their eggs from local farms.
Pasture-raised: “Pasture raised is your best bet as the chicken gets to forage and move around,” says Jones. The label means chickens have access to a pasture environment and a barn, with room to forage. However, how a farm defines “access” can vary. “If a farm is producing eggs on an extremely large scale, it’s rare that it is running hundreds of thousands of chickens out on pasture.” Some farms are spacious, some are cramped, some feed off varied plots of land, and some feed from just one.
Cage-free: At the minimum, you want to make sure the carton has this label. “Chickens raised in battery cages aren’t allowed to express any physiological movements they were intended to express and they’re stuck in a box they can’t be turned around in.” Basically, this means the chicken isn’t confined to a cage and can walk around, although it doesn’t guarantee outdoor access.
Free-range: This means the chickens are cage-free, but also have outdoor access. Similar to pasture-raised, “access” can mean a few different things. A free-range label can indicate that chickens are out on pasture the majority of their lives, or it can mean there’s a door to a pad of grass, says Jones.