Target Runs Out of Eggs
Along with McDonalds, grocery chains are racing to put distance between themselves and the Sparboe factory farms whose abominable treatment of egg-laying hens was caught in undercover video. The Fort Worth Star Telegram writes:
A multi-tiered, yard-wide refrigerated case at a Target SuperStore in Fort Worth has stood starkly empty since Monday during one of the year’s busiest grocery shopping weeks.
Target has dropped its major egg supplier — Sparboe Farms, of Litchfield, Minn. — after animal abuse claims and the chain failed to find replacements for a key ingredient in pumpkin pie and other traditional dishes in time for Thanksgiving. Similar empty egg displays were reported at other Target stores in North Texas and throughout the country.
Sparboe President Beth Sparboe Schnell acts all surprised and helpful that the company has been caught red-handed:
“All bird-handling employees have been retrained, and will receive additional training over time as we enhance our procedures and continually reinforce our uncompromising expectations for animal care.”
Then she comments on a warning letter she’d had from the FDA last spring after an inspection:
“We incorrectly assumed that we had sufficiently responded to the observations noted [last spring]. We now know we were wrong and we had not supplied the detail that they needed. We are currently working 24/7 to provide the FDA with the necessary detail.”
Sure. And McDonalds didn’t know either. Nor Target and WalMart and Lund’s and and any of Sparboe’s other major clients.