Starbucks has announced their “Animal Welfare-Friendly Practices” plan where they will source food items that are from animal protected welfare companies. The Human Society immediately praised Starbucks on their new program as “the most comprehensive animal welfare policy of any national restaurant chain.” Starbucks’ largest action within the program is to source more humanely raised eggs. However, Starbucks predicts their company change in all locations in North America will take five years max.

Starbucks has been making efforts to make the witch since 2008. They have released that they have made “significant progress” with farmers, enough to pledge to be entirely cage-free by 2020. Not only did Starbucks pledge to source eggs from cage-free hens, they have announce plans to phase out gestation crates for pigs, eliminate growth hormones and end other inhumane farming practices.

While Starbucks’ shift is commendable for advocates in animal-welfare, some worry that there will be a shortage of eggs. Like Starbucks, other restaurant chains are shifting to sourcing materials from Animal Welfare farmers. McDonalds has been working on their switch since 2010, and are now committed to going cage-free. U.S. supplies, however, just revived from the worst-ever bird flu epidemic.

Many companies are creating shifts to animal welfare policies, and creating more demand for organic, humane sources.

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The world-wide shift to vegetarian based, and overall healthier foods has become apparent in the food industry. Taco Bell, a Mexican-food chain, is the first major fas-food company to offer a certified-vegetarian menu. The American Vegetarian Association confirmed menu items to be meat-free. Taco Bell will offer 13 different items including the Cantina Power Veggie Bowl, and the Seven-layer Burrito.

Customers can view the vegetarian categories through the company’s website and the mobile-ordering application. However, while this category may seem new to consumers, CEO Brian Niccol regards this “shift” as something that has already been implemented in Taco Bell’s menus as they already sell 350 million vegetarian menu items a year. However, now they just make it more apparent and clearer as a vegetarian option.

Vegetarians will be able to combine 35 certified-vegetarian ingredients to create different vegetarian combinations. There will also be an option to substitute beans for meat. This array of options will ideally appeal to a bigger market for Taco Bell- vegetarians. Moreover, Taco Bell has also announced that along with the vegetarian option they do have 26 items that are certified-vegan ingredients that vegans can combine as their own meal.

With many fast-food chains restaurants becoming less appealing to consumers, Taco Bell’s efforts to shift their brand image and appeal to a healthier menu choice can potentially create customers in more markets like vegetarian and vegan.

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