Where The Hens At?

I recently asserted that all claims at the grocery store of "free range", "pastured" and the like are a sham. The marketers try to convince you that Vital Farm eggs are produced the same way as at Farmcraft, 3 Brothers Farm or Polyface, but it is so misleading as to be fraudulent. Labeling laws for these and other food claims are vague, weak and seem to be seldom enforced. It applies across the board to organic vegetables, regenerative beef, free range chicken, pastured eggs, forest raised pork, and so on. The focus of this post will be "free range" or "pastured" chicken and eggs.

This will be just one piece of evidence to support my claim. I could and maybe will provide much more evidence and potential motivations if there is enough fire in me and interest from you, but for now here is just one observation that you can likely replicate:

When I drive down a country road, a state highway or even I-70, I see lots of cattle. Some of them are on concrete or dirt lots, but many are actually on pasture. If I look closely, some of them are big fellas. Fat cattle. They were born and raised, and finished until fat, on the pastures next to the road. Usually the herds are not huge – in the 10s or at most 100s of animals. But I know they exist. From the road, I can see the grass fed cattle, and I can go to the farms and the farmers will generally be happy to show them to me. I also see feed lots where cattle are being finished on grain. I usually see lots more cattle in these lots. 1,000s or 10,000s of animals in each feed lot operation. On the whole, in my experience of driving around the USA, I think I have seen more fat (finished) cattle in feed lots than in pastures. This matches what I see at the store. Mostly, the store is stocked with “no claims” beef (no claims on the label in regard how the animal was raised). That means it went through feedlots and was grain-finished. Part of the grocery store meat case, however, is beef that claims to be grass-fed. What I see at the store matches what I see from the road. Majority grain-finished beef, minority grass-fed beef.

 Okay. When it comes to chicken and eggs, the situation at the store is largely the same as beef. The majority of the eggs are “no claims” or maybe labeled with the claim “cage free”. A minority of the eggs claim to be “pasture raised” or "free range". And same for the chicken meat – majority “no claims”, but some of it is labeled “pasture raised” or "free range". I don’t know exactly what fraction. Maybe 10% have the “pasture raised” label. My observations from the road, however, do not match what I see at the store. On occasion I see 5 or 10 chickens in someone’s yard. This is notable. It doesn’t happen very often. Even more rarely I see a farm with a pasture-based flock. I can think of 2, in the entirety of my experience on the road, and one is my farm. The other is the G-Farm on WI Hwy 10.

The USDA statistics show 300 million hens in the US, with 7 million of those in Wisconsin. If 10% of the eggs at the store are pasture raised, that’s 700,000 pastured hens I should see scattered about Wisconsin. At Farmcraft we currently have about 150 hens. The biggest truly pastured flock I know of is 3,000 hens. Maybe the average pastured flock was somewhere in between – say 1,000 hens. That means there should be 700 with flocks of 1,000 pastured hens in Wisconsin, and 30,000 pastured flocks across the country. That’s quite a few. I should see those on occasion. More than 2 in my life. 30,000 pastured flocks is 6x more flocks than there are Walmart stores in the US. It seems like I should actually see the birds and the pasture shelters somewhat frequently.

As for meat chickens, there are 160 million slaughtered each week in the US, or 8.3 billion per year. Say 10% are pastured or free range. That’s 800 million each year. Say that every pasture producer was doing 6 batches each year and raising the chickens in the summer only. 800 million divided by 6 batches means that 130 million meat chickens should be on pasture in the US every day throughout the summer. At Farmcraft we are currently raising 300 birds per batch. If all of the “pastured” birds were produced at this scale, there would be 430,000 Farmcrafts across the country. And if every farm operated at the high end of the pastured poultry scale – 5,000 birds per batch – there would be 26,000 pastured meat bird farms. So, there should be somewhere between 26,000 and 430,000 flocks of pastured meat birds across the US. Say the average pastured farm was relatively large – 1,300 birds per batch, or 4x bigger than Farmcraft. Then there would be 100,000 farms with flocks and shelters and farmers out on pasture every day of the summer. Yet, I have seen 2 from the road – Farmcraft and the G farm. There seems to a mismatch between the quantity of “pastured poultry” at the grocery store and the number of pastured poultry farms I have seen from the road.

Plausible explanations:

• Maybe many pastured poultry flocks are not visible from the road. However, it seems implausible that there are 100,000 pastured meat bird farms, and 30,000 pastured hen farms across the country and that in 33 years of experience I have only seen 2 of them from the road. Additionally, the observation of grass-fed beef farms from the road suggests that it is possible and relatively common to see non-conventional/minority farms from the road.

• Maybe my grocery store estimates are way off. Say my grocery store numbers were off by a factor of 5 – only 2% of poultry and eggs are sold as “pasture raised” – then there should be 20,000 meat bird farms and 6,000 pastured hen farms. Seeing only 2 such farms would still feel like quite the mismatch.

• Maybe the claims are false. The chicken and eggs labeled “pastured” could actually have been raised in a barn, and that is why you don’t ever see the birds or the pasture infrastructure or the farmer outside working with the flock. The USDA does not distinguish between “free range”, “pasture raised” and “outdoor access”, so the birds could be (are being) housed in fan-ventilated low and long barns with concrete floors and garage doors that are occasionally opened for “outdoor access”, thus meeting the requirements to be labeled as “pastured” and “free range”.

I'm interested to hear from you, friends and readers. Where are the flocks and farmers and pasture infrastructure for all of the pastured eggs and pastured chicken at the grocery store? I'd love to hear any observations or explanations.

There are lots of good farmers out there. Vital Farms (and most other brands at the grocery store) are just not among them. I encourage you to go to the farm. Go and see the birds, the cows, the pigs, the vegetables. Meet the farmer. It's hardly any work and is as fun and interesting as anything you can do.

Rock on all. Best to you and yours and happy Thanksgiving and Christmas and all the days and holidays.

Below: Farmcraft Pastured Chicken & Eggs