What does a person grabbing a sandwich at Tesco in London, stopping for lunch at a Whole Foods in Ohio, or eating at Pizza Hut in Shanghai have in common? They are each consuming fresh food prepared by one of the world’s largest food manufacturers, Bakkavor.

Most consumers have never heard their name before but Bakkavor is a global leader in the fresh prepared foods industry, with a $2.2 billion annual revenue. It serves leading retailers in the United Kingdom such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Morrisons and Asda, as well as leading retailers in in the United States including Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Harris Teeter and Kroger’s Home Chef.

The company is also a major player in mainland China, where it operates 8 factories, and Hong Kong, with clients including KFC, Pizza Hut, Costa Coffee, Starbucks, Aldi and Marks & Spencer. The products Bakkavor produces, which primarily span baked goods and prepared meals such as salads, sandwiches, pizzas and similar, use a very large quantity of eggs and egg ingredients.

Bakkavor’s Global Pledge

Through a year and a half of engagement with Bakkavor teams in mainland China, Hong Kong, the U.S., and the U.K., Lever provided key information and resources such as cage-free supplier lists that eventually gave the company the confidence to make a public commitment to stop using eggs from caged hens across its global supply chain. (The company previously had no cage-free commitment for any market.) The pledge will see Bakkavor shifting to using only cage-free eggs in the U.K. by 2025 and globally by 2027. Thanks to Lever’s efforts, an estimated approximately one hundred thousand laying hens in China, the U.S. and the U.K. will be spared each year from lifelong cage confinement.

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