Nearly three months after the Fire ‘n Spice grill began offering eggs from free range chickens as part of its menu, University students haven’t scrambled to make the switch as quickly as Food Services may have hoped.
For any Fire ‘n Spice dish with eggs in it, students on the residence hall meal plan can opt for cage-free eggs for an extra point. But while the environmentally friendly alternative comes at a relatively small cost for students, most cited simple apathy as the reason for not making a change.
Kwang Park, a chef in the Hamilton dining area, estimated that only about 10 to 20 students are willing to pay extra for cage-free eggs on a typical weekend brunch day, out of a total of about 300.
“I think most customers don’t really care that much,” Park said, adding that there is still time for the idea to catch on. “We just started it not too long ago, so maybe we’ll gradually build up.”
The movement largely stemmed from the efforts of Students for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said Food Services Director Tom Driscoll. He said the department then went to the Residence Hall Association with the idea, who agreed to implement the new option at Fire ‘n Spice.
“We decided to give it a test run,” Driscoll said. “There’s a pretty high cost with these eggs, and they’re not as readily available as regular eggs.”
The demand for the new option has been spotty, Driscoll said, with little sign of improvement during the course of this term. Still, there are no plans to end the program before the end of this school year, he said.
“There’re days when we get one or two takers, and there’re days we get as many as 17,” Driscoll said.
Most students approached for this story echoed Park’s assessment, saying they simply didn’t care enough to make the change.
University freshman Kathryn Donahue said she hadn’t heard about the option until she was told about it while ordering breakfast Sunday morning.
“The lady was just like, ‘they come from happier chickens,’ and that was the only difference,” Donahue said. “I don’t think it really matters.”
Cage-free eggs do have other significant health benefits: They have lower levels of cholesterol, fat and calories than regular eggs.
University senior Jake McCoy said he had ordered cage-free eggs with his breakfast Sunday in support of what he felt was a good cause.
“I don’t think most kids at this university care enough about the environment,” he said. “It does cost an extra point, but it’s not that big of a deal.”
McCoy said he would likely continue to eat the alternative as long as they were available.
But despite the testimonies of Donahue and McCoy, Park said more female students typically spring for cage-free eggs.
Alec Zimmerman, a coordinator with SETA, said the somewhat slow student response is likely due to a lack of awareness, something SETA has tried to counter with campaigns outside the Hamilton dining area this term. Zimmerman also said she was disappointed with the University’s decision to offer the cage-free option in only one of the residence hall dining areas, instead of making the complete switch SETA requested.
“When we heard about the option at Fire ‘n Spice, it was a small victory,” she said. “It’s upsetting because the UO has a reputation as being a progressive school with these kinds of campaigns … We’d like to see it implemented in all the other dorms.”
Driscoll said Food Services will continue to monitor the popularity of the program before it decides what the campaign’s future is.
Until a decision is made, Driscoll said, the increasing visibility of the issue could lower the cost of cage-free eggs, making it easier for the University to incur the extra cost and continue supporting it. Either way, the University would like to satisfy a demand if it is there, he said.
“I think the word is starting to get out,” Driscoll said. “If there’s a product out there that students want, we’ll try to get it.”
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