Outrage as Icelandic egg farm is exposed for animal cruelty

News programme Kastljós on Rúv national television made revelations last night on egg farm Brúnegg, a supposedly "ecological" egg farm.  Consumers have been fooled into thinking that the eggs are "ecological", which they are not, and it was revealed that the conditions in which the hens are kept are appalling.

It was furthermore revealed that MAST, the Icelandic food and veterinary authority, has made complaints over several years to Brúnegg on the conditions in which the hens were kept, complaints which were disregarded. Somehow none of this became consumer knowledge and consumers have been buying eggs from Brúnegg in the belief that they are organic eggs from happy hens.

The cages contained far too many hens and cleanliness was severaly lacking. Staff had placed rodent poison on the floor near the eggs and both maggots and dead mice were found there. There were also indicatons that the hens suffered from avian cholera.

According to a vet who spoke on the news programme hens become very stressed if they have no space in their cages, and the hens are more prone to disease.

Jón Gíslason, director of MAST believes that the egg farm never qualified as an organic farm and therefore should not have labelled their products as such. The Brúnegg eggs are 40 percent more expensive than regular eggs.

Both the Króna supermarket chain and Melabúðin have announced that they will immediately be stopping all sales of Brúnegg eggs.

The episode of news programme Kastljós can be seen HERE.

Update: The Bónus and Hagkaup supermarket chains have also stopped selling Brúnegg eggs.