Update: May 2026
At Puratos, we care deeply about animal welfare and recognize our responsibility to help build a more sustainable food system. As providers of bakery and patisserie ingredients, we use eggs in some of our products and remain committed to continuously improving our sourcing practices to minimize adverse impacts. At the same time, we believe our greatest contribution lies in reducing the overall reliance on eggs across the industry. Through our egg-reducing and egg-replacing solutions, we actively support our customers in lowering their use of eggs, helping to drive change at scale. We will continue to expand these solutions, as this is where we can have the most meaningful impact across the value chain.
Our approach and progress
In 2020, we committed to sourcing 100% cage-free eggs globally by the end of 2025. This ambition was set based on our assessment that meaningful change could be achieved across the entire value chain within this framework.
Progress toward this goal has however been slower than expected, reflecting the complexity and global scope of our operations. Over the past years, several external factors have further impacted our progress. These include global avian flu outbreaks, regional supply shortages, and varying levels of customer willingness to absorb the additional cost of cage-free eggs. While we continue to actively promote this transition, we cannot impose ingredient choices, especially in markets where affordability, supply stability, and availability remain key constraints.
As a result, our conversion to cage-free eggs has stabilized at around 30% between 2022 and 2024, and reached 35% in 2025, as more alternatives became available. This increase is largely driven by strong progress within the European Union, where 85% of our products already use cage-free eggs. Outside Europe, progress remains more challenging.
A more focused and actionable approach
To accelerate progress, we are redefining how we approach cage-free sourcing by distinguishing between different product categories.
- For our standard product range, where we have full control over recipes and sourcing decisions, we will transition to 100% cage-free eggs across all markets, except South America, by the end of 2030.
- For customer-tailored products, progress will depend on close collaboration with our customers. Transitioning to cage-free eggs in these cases requires joint efforts, including product reformulation, performance validation, cost sharing, and supply alignment. We remain committed to supporting our customers in this process and will offer cage-free solutions wherever feasible.
We will also continue engaging with customers to expand our egg-reducing and egg-replacing solutions and help accelerate the industry’s transition.
Reducing our overall use of eggs
Reducing our reliance on eggs is a key focus for us and one of the most impactful levers we have to drive change across the value chain. We continue to work on our formulations to identify alternative ingredients that deliver the same functionality, while reducing the need for eggs. In recent years, we have steadily reduced the total volume of eggs and egg products we purchase, even as our global production volumes have increased.
Supporting our customers with egg reducing and egg-replacing solutions
Through our innovation and application expertise, we are actively developing and scaling solutions that enable our customers to make the transition to reducing their use of eggs in a practical and accessible way. In 2025, we prevented 782,848,158 eggs being used.
Our long-term objectives
- By the end of 2028, 100% of eggs used in all products across our EU portfolio will be cage-free.
- By the end of 2030, all products in our standard product range containing eggs will use cage-free eggs across the EU, North America, Africa, and Asia (excluding customer-tailored formulas).
- By the end of 2030, help reduce the use of eggs across the market by the equivalent of 1 billion eggs.
