Beth Gallie is president of Maine Animal Coalition, a volunteer for The Humane League and a longtime resident of South Portland.

If you shop at Hannaford in Maine’s cities and towns, where it is the go-to grocery store, you may soon notice more eggs labeled “cage-free.”  

But the story isn’t just about what’s on the shelf.

It’s that, for the first time, shoppers will be able to clearly track progress as Ahold Delhaize, owner of Hannaford, follows through on its commitment to go cage-free. And this agreement reaches far beyond Maine. Multinational Ahold Delhaize owns four other grocery chains in the U.S. besides Hannaford, making it America’s fourth largest grocery retail group.

This March, Ahold Delhaize committed to switching to 100% cage-free eggs by 2032 in all its stores in the U.S. That timeline has been out there before. What’s different now is that the company has clearly laid out a path to get there and agreed to show its progress along the way.

Today 31% of all the eggs Ahold Delhaize sells in the U.S. are from cage-free hens. Under the new timeline, more than half will be cage-free by 2028 and 70% will be cage-free by 2030. Finally, in 2032 all eggs sold in the U.S. by Ahold Delhaize will cage-free.  

Each year, Ahold Delhaize promises to report how it’s doing. This may not sound groundbreaking, but it is. Until now, companies could make big promises without showing much proof. Some would get accolades and even media coverage for their cage-free commitments, and then quietly decide not to follow through. The difference here is that Ahold Delhaize/Hannaford are giving shoppers a way to see whether those promises are being kept.

Nearly half of eggs sold in the U.S. are already cage-free, which is a big increase from just two decades ago when that number was only 5%. Since supermarkets sell more than half of the country’s eggs, they play a huge role in whether the cage-free egg transition moves forward or stalls. That’s why this commitment is worth paying attention to.

This commitment didn’t happen by accident. It came after more than a year of pressure from organizations like The Humane League, working alongside a global coalition of animal protection groups, and supported by advocates here in Maine who spoke up, showed up and helped push this issue forward.

For hens, the difference is real. In cage systems, birds are kept in spaces so small they can’t spread their wings. Hens in battery cages spend their entire lives standing on metal wire and eating, sleeping and defecating in the same tiny space, denied the ability to take dust baths, walk and perch. Cage-free systems aren’t perfect, but they give hens more room to move and live more naturally.

Eleven states have banned raising hens in battery cages. Unfortunately, Maine is not one of the 11. The good news is that Maine’s notorious supplier of eggs from caged hens has dismantled its warehouses and left the state.

And if truth be told, most animal activists don’t eat eggs because of their respect and concern for animals. Hens, for example, are beautiful creatures and are as cognitively, emotionally and socially complex as other birds and mammals.

But Mainers don’t need to go vegan today to make a difference. A good start would be to purchase cage-free eggs and help Hannaford go cage-free by 2032.