As part of an ongoing commitment to cage-free and organic egg production, Gemperle Farms, an industry leader in specialty eggs, announced this week that its conversion to 100% cage-free production will be accelerated and completed by 2023. The previous commitment stated that they conversion to cage free would be completed by 2024.

"A great majority of our food retail, food manufacturing and foodservice and hospitality customers have committed to using 100% cage free by 2025. Our conversion timeline of 2023 completion puts us two years ahead of most of our customer commitments," Gemperle Family Farms president Steve Gemperle said.

As part of the commitment, the company plans to convert all barns, including their fully enriched colony barns, to 100% cage-free aviary and open barn production by 2023. A major portion of this conversion to cage free and organic has already been completed in the past decade.

"We have always appreciated our customers who have supported the cage-free and organic movement," Gemperle said. "We are seeing an acceleration of this trend at the consumer, foodservice and manufacturing level, which will allow us to complete our conversion by 2023."

Gemperle Family Farms, based in Stanislaus County, Cal., has been an industry leader for more than two decades in specialty eggs such as browns, organic and cage free. The company said all of its eggs are produced with both sustainable and science-based practices.