A secretly recorded footage released by an animal rights group has exposed appalling conditions on a poultry farm that is supplying a number of public institutions, raising questions about the quality of food served at Slovenian schools, kindergartens and care homes.

The video, first aired by the public broadcaster TV Slovenija on a current affairs debate show on 9 January, shows hens laying eggs on top of cadavers and dead rodents in the isle between batteries of cages stacked on top of each other.

The Animal Enterprise Transparency Project (AETP), which released the footage, issued a press release on 10 January saying that consumers were being misled into believing that caged poultry is a thing of the past as most retailers no longer sell cage eggs.

While production method must be declared for fresh eggs, this is not the case for processed foods. "Almost a quarter of a million of hens in Slovenia are still kept in cages," the AETP said.

Because they are the cheapest option, cage eggs are bought by schools, kindergartens and hospitals, as well as restaurants, pastry shops and other food processing businesses, finding their way into a myriad of foods.

Earlier this year, the AETP launched a campaign against the use of cages for hens and sows in Slovenia. It also launched a petition that has so far been signed by 18,000 people.

Experts shocked at what they believe is isolated case

Officials and veterinary experts taking part in the Tarča news show responded to the footage with shock, saying they had never seen anything like that in their working careers.

Fabian Kos, the director of the Inspection for Food Safety, Veterinary Sector and Plant Protection, announced they would open an investigation although the TV report did not reveal the name of the farm.

Citing publicly available records, the report said the farm supplied a variety of food products to nearly 300 public institutions. The TV team also contacted some of their buyers, including two kindergartens who buy free-range eggs from them.

Jože Podgoršek, the head of the Chamber of Agriculture and Forestry (KGZS), expressed shock at the footage and condemned as unacceptable what he believes is an isolated case.

But Samo Curk, the head of the AETP, begged to differ. It is always said that grave violations are isolated cases but that is not true, he said, arguing that Slovenia's legislation allowed such things to happen.

Tarča also aired a report from a farm operated by Jata Emona, the country's largest egg producer, showing poultry in cages even though the company claimed it no longer used cages.

The company's representative on the show suggested they had kept cage egg production longer than planned because some of the demand for such, cheaper eggs from some of the buyers.

Poor quality of food supplied to schools

"The meat brought to school is often very bad or of dubious quality," Mihaela Mrzlikar, the head teacher of Log Dragomer Primary School, wrote. She is usually in the kitchen in the morning to check on the deliveries.

"There have been several occasions when we have refused meat because it was not edible, either in appearance or in smell. The sad thing is they asked us why we're complicating. Worse still, this same objectionable meat was taken on to a retirement home," Mrzlikar added.

Ramiza Gutić, a cook at a Grosuplje care home, said suppliers often tried to force poor quality of food on them. "We order veal, I take it to prepare it, season it. On top there's veal, and below there's old beef ... There are many examples like that."

Karmen Cunder, the head teacher of a primary school in Logatec, too reported that suppliers were quite brazen in what they would supply mainly because of the low prices and poor oversight.

The lunch at their school costs €3.20 and in some schools it is even less than two euros, while schools are required to meet ever stricter demands for food quality, including for organic food.

On top of that, a lot of food is discarded because the children would not eat it, which Cunder expects will get an even bigger problem when school lunch will be free for all children starting from September 2027.

Cage eggs to be phased out

Reporting on the contentious poultry farm footage, the newspaper Dnevnik cited official data from the Administration for Food Safety, Veterinary Sector and Plant Protection for December showing that only 14% of egg-producing hens in Slovenia are kept in cages.

According to official data, 79.5% of egg-producing hens in Slovenia are kept in barns, meaning they live on the ground, with capacity limited to nine hens per square metre. 4% of egg-producing hens are free-range and another 2.4% are organic.

Last year, some 150 million eggs were sold in Slovenia: 82.2% were barn-laid eggs, 9.4% were free-range or organic and only 7.8% from hens kept in enriched cages.

While battery cages were banned in the EU 2021 and replaced with enriched cages, the use of enriched cages has already been banned in Austria, Luxembourg and the Netherlands with several other countries to follow suit this and in the coming years.

Ožbalt Podpečan, the head of the National Centre for Wellbeing of Animals of the Ljubljana Veterinary Faculty, told Dnevnik that a strategy for Slovenia to abolish enriched cages has been drafted and would soon be talked out with producers, including about a transition period.

The Agriculture Ministry says the goal is to abolish cage breeding by 2028 at the latest.