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Another level of transparency for rPET egg packs

Pete & Gerry’s Organics emphasizes the importance of small family egg farms, with photos and copy on the carton liner that talk about its egg suppliers and the industry.

Pw 52654 Nellies Open2

A clear PET package made from 100% recycled material that displays the fresh, Nellie’s Nest brand of Certified Humane, cage-free eggs from Pete & Gerry’s Organics has taken on a new level of transparency. In early 2013, the company redesigned the inner carton liners for its egg packs to include photos and copy that introduce some of the 59 small family farms that supply its eggs, along with facts on the state of egg farming today.

In the late ’90s, fearful of being squeezed out of the conventional egg-farming business by big factory farms, Pete & Gerry’s, a small, family-run egg farm located in the heart of New Hampshire’s White Mountains, pioneered the organic and cage-free egg segment in the Northeastern U.S. β€œCEO Jesse LaFlamme caught and rode the growing wave of consumers who were turning toward more ethically produced, healthier eggs,” relates the company’s executive vice president of marketing and business development, David Rachlin.

Today the farmβ€”operating nine barns of cage-free hensβ€”contracts with nearly 60 small family egg farms, primarily in the Northeastern U.S., and is constantly recruiting additional egg producers to keep up with demand for its Nellie’s Nest Cage-Free, Pete & Gerry’s Organic, and Pete & Gerry’s Heirloom egg brands.

β€œIt is deeply, viscerally important to our CEO to bring back the small family farmers, to give them a chance,” says Rachlin. β€œBig Ag has wiped out 92 percent of the small family egg farmers, and they have done that by concentrating in these massive CAFOs [Concentrated Agricultural Feeding Operations], with millions of hens in caged barns. Of course, it’s all to drive out cost, but it drives out a lot of other values, like ethics and humane treatment of the animals, as well as other things that even translate into the nutrition, appearance, and taste of the egg.”

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