Spring Break
Cafeteria serves cage-free eggs
Teresa Sheffield
Issue date: 8/25/08 Section: News
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Last Tuesday, the school highlighted this new policy by serving specialty grilled egg sandwiches and traditional scrambled eggs in addition to an omelet station in the cafeteria.
Carla Coperdink, a member of the Humane Society, talked with students waiting in line to pay for their meal and passed out animal cruelty pamphlets.
Coperdink said cage-free eggs are starting to catch on college campuses.
"It's really snowballing, there are over 350 universities that have a cage-free egg policy," she said. "You're really seeing it more and more, and as people learn about it they really want to improve the welfare of these chickens."
The initiative was started by students and faculty on campus and got its final push when Student Government Association passed a resolution, asking school officials to incorporate a cage-free egg policy.
Charlie Spencer, student organizer of the event, said a lot of people were in favor of using cage-free eggs.
"I think that it was a recognized issue and a lot of students feel pretty strongly about it," Spencer said. "It was brought to the student government and I think a good case was made for it. There are a lot of people behind it. It's taken awhile to do it, because I know of all the bureaucracy and all that, and it takes a while to get things through. But [people] really pushed it through the system and I think it's going to do a lot of good."
Nikoo Cheraghi, spokesperson for UMKC and the cafeteria services company Sodexho, said they decided to have this service because they believe in the humane treatment of animals and want to show they listen to students.
Cheraghi also said though the new cage-free policy costs more money, they've found ways to make it work.
"We have worked creatively within our pricing structure to accommodate the exclusive use of cage-free eggs, which are considerably more expensive than traditional eggs," she said.
Another thing the cafeteria is doing to help the environment is getting rid of food trays. They think it will cut down on the over portioning of students.
Cheraghi said they estimate more than 30 tons of food were thrown away last year, mostly because students took more food than they could eat.
She also says the cafeteria won't have to waste the heat, water and cleaning products that were used to clean the nearly 400,000 trays a year.
tsheffield@unews.com
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