ST. LOUIS (AP) – Panera Bread is the latest restaurant chain to announce plans to stop using eggs from cage-confined hens. The suburban St. Louis-based chain said Thursday it will use 100 percent cage-free eggs in the U.S. by 2020. McDonald’s announced in September that it will go to cage-free eggs in the U.S. and Canada over the next decade. Subway and Starbucks have also said they will switch to cage-free eggs, though they have not announced a timeline for the transition. Panera CEO and founder Ron Shaich says the company has been working for more than a decade to reduce antibiotic use and confinement across its supply chain. Sara Burnett, the company’s director of wellness and food policy, calls the move to cage-free eggs part of a “solution to a broken food system.”
