O'Hayer: 95% to 98% of US egg-laying hens lived in cages around 2004
Matt O'Hayer · Vital Farms: Matt O’Hayer. How a serial entrepreneur re-branded the egg · Mar 23, 2026 · at 32:41
Vital Farms founder Matt O'Hayer explains why he entered the pasture-raised egg industry after a conversation with Whole Foods co-founder John Mackey.
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“What I found is that the three hundred million chickens that are out there, three hundred and thirty million chickens, even at that time, 95, 98% of them were living in cages. Four, five, six, seven, eight birds to a cage, unable to stand up, unable to turn around, unable to stretch their wings their entire lives.”
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