The Lakes Free Range Egg Co Ltd prides itself on its animal welfare credentials. All our producer farms are members of the animal welfare organization Freedom Foods and are audited by it annually. Also RSPCA audits are undertaken on a random unannounced basis to check our farms.

The company has full time trainers who are part of a formal government approved scheme who visit farms at least monthly to advise on management and welfare issues and provide any training required by the company for its producers.

We also operate to such customer requirements as the McDonald’s Agricultural Assurance Programme (MAAP) with its strict welfare standards.

A key factor in our welfare credentials is the fact that all our birds are free range and have freedom of access to the outdoors, allowing them to roam, fly and perch up trees and dust bathe both in and outdoors.

Unlike fresh (cage) and barn hens this allows them to exhibit natural behaviour and choice wherever and whenever they wish.

The ‘Lakes’ have participated in a new piece of commercial research, conducted by the Food Animal Initiative (FAI) and commissioned by McDonald’s UK, which shows that planting more trees on the range encourages laying hens to roam more freely outdoors, which in turn reduces the amount of feather pecking and stress levels in the flock. This exciting piece of work will help roll out tree planting across much of the UK free range flock and greatly increase bird welfare on free range systems.