As one of the country’s leading fresh-food caterers, the National Trust is backing the new ‘Simply Ask’ campaign, run by the RSPCA’s Freedom Food scheme.
‘Simply Ask’ will encourage restaurant-goers to ask about the provenance of their food.
With 80 per cent of eggs used in restaurants and in ready-made products still coming from battery hens, the ‘Simply Ask’ campaign, launched during RSPCA Freedom Food’s Farm Animal Week 2009 (19-25 October), will urge consumers to ask where their eggs have come from.
With more than 150 restaurants and tea-rooms throughout the country, the National Trust has been 100 per cent free range for 6 years, using more than half a million free range eggs in its baking and cooking in this time.
As part of the campaign, the National Trust’s restaurants and team rooms will display the Simply Ask logo and catering teams will be on-hand to offer advice and encourage its visitors to ask where the eggs used to make their food have come.
Lynda Brewer, Catering Development Manager for the National Trust, said:
'With over 150 catering outlets across the length and breadth of the UK, many in remote or hard to reach areas, we are always up against the challenge of providing fresh, seasonal food which meets our welfare standards. But we do it.
'We are fully behind the RSPCA Freedom Food campaign to ‘Simply Ask’ about the provenance of eggs being used in the food people eat when they are out. If we, as one of the country’s largest producers of freshly baked cakes and using eggs on the scale we do, can be free range, then anyone can.
It was through negotiations with catering company Brakes in 2003 that the National Trust was able to use 100 per cent free range eggs in all its cooking. Today, both the company and local Freedom Food accredited suppliers provide eggs to Trust restaurants and tearooms. Following its original contract with the Trust, Brakes now supplies over 14,148,600 free range eggs to catering outlets across the UK.'
Lynda continued:
'By taking simple steps, such as finding a national supplier of free range eggs, or even better, a supplier local to your business, all catering companies can easily follow our example and use only free range eggs in their cooking. There really is no excuse to use eggs laid by hens kept in appalling conditions.'
The National Trust joins some of the best known faces in the culinary world - including Raymond Blanc and Antony Worrall-Thompson - in urging restaurants to shout about their welfare credentials by signing up to ‘Simply Ask’.
The ‘Simply Ask’ campaign will focus specifically on eggs in the first year. This is because about 80 per cent of eggs used in food products and food service are still from hens kept in battery cages, compared to about 58 per cent of whole eggs produced for retail.
The campaign follows new research revealing that 34 per cent of consumers said they are now more likely to let farm animal welfare concerns influence what restaurant they eat in compared to five years ago.
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