Japan’s top egg producer has signed a contract with the Singaporean government to build a production facility that will produce over 300 million eggs a year by 2026. Th company was recently targeted by an animal rights organization for its facilities’ ‘hellish’ conditions,
Work on the new ISE Foods Holdings (IFH) egg production facility is due to begin in 2022, according to a Singapore Food Agency press release. By 2026, the facility aims to produce 360 million eggs and five million chicks a year. IFH would invest more than S$100 million in the Singapore facility.
Although the press release mentions animal health, there is no reference to animal welfare.
Videos made by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) of an IFH production facility in Japan showed chickens crammed into wire cages, corpses of dead hens, injured hens, trapped hens and hens with large bald patches.
“On the farm, injured birds suffering from painful conditions caused by excessive egg-laying were crammed into spaces so small they couldn’t even stretch their wings,” Nirali Shah from PETA Asia said. “Dead chickens were left to rot alongside survivors and other birds covered with red, inflamed sores.”
IFH was caught on camera clearly abusing chickens, Shah told The Animal Reader in a mail. “PETA will be writing to the Singapore Food Agency to urge them to stop IHF from setting up shop in the country,” she added.
Vegan alternatives
Shah said that the popularity of vegan foods has grown in recent years. “Innovative companies in Singapore like OsomeFoods have developed a vegan hard-boiled egg, which no animal has to die for.”
“If the Singapore Food Agency cares about the suffering of animals, the health of the public, and the planet, it will stop the IFH farm from opening and shift to invest in animal-free meals instead,” she added.
“I understand Singapore is a developed country. The government should realize nutrition supply can be met not only by the supply of livestock products, but also by promotion of a balanced diet,” Jeff Zhou, China representative for Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), said.
Zhou suggested that although the project aimed to improve local food security, providing more support for alternative proteins and plant-based foods might be the better option.
He said CIWF was “very encouraged” to see the Singapore Food Agency approving Eat Just‘s cell-cultured chicken. The move made “the country the first in the world to give its go-ahead to selling meat created in a lab. I do hope Singapore can play a leading role in the promotion of animal welfare and sustainable use of resources in Asia.”
In an email to The Animal Reader, IFH said it was “planning to conduct various studies on animal welfare from both physical and mental perspectives” for the Singapore facility, adding that there are plans for an aviary chicken house.
They did not provide further details on animal welfare.
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