Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


The state is cracking down on Kroger Company due to misleading advertising of cage-free eggs.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s Office sent a letter to Rodney McMullen, the CEO of the regional grocery chain. It urged the grocer to add clear signage to stores to help consumers understand which eggs, exactly, came from caged chickens.

The letter was authored by Jason Evans, the division chief of the Attorney General’s Corporate Oversight Division. It was spurred by a newly published report from Data for Progress titled ‘Cracking Down on Koger’ that concluded from its polling, in-part, that “Kroger customers reveal that the company’s marketing of caged chicken eggs is both confusing and misleading, at best.”

The state says the report indicates that Kroger shoppers are being misled into buying eggs from caged hens wrongly thinking they are cage-free.

Nessel commented “Grocery shoppers throughout the state should be able to decipher and trust the advertising in whichever grocer they shop. Grocers must be transparent and honest in their in-store marketing. It is troubling to read reports saying that is not what all customers are experiencing.”

A press release states: At issue in the report is the use of product labeling terms such as “Farm Fresh” and “Grade A”, labels described by Data for Progress to not “have a relationship with the method by which the chickens that laid them were raised” and whose polling reflects “both uncertainty and misperceptions surrounding label meanings” among Kroger customers, per the report”.

The Data for Progress report explains that Kroger Co. pledged publicly in 2016 to sell exclusively cage-free eggs by 2025. In 2021, the company reported being on track to meet this pledge, and then in 2022 abandoned its goal to ever achieve 100% cage-free egg stock on their shelves.

In the department’s letter, Evans reminds that Michigan law will prohibit – beginning in 2025 – the sale of eggs from caged hens.

The letter and more information are available in the link and attachment.