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About Us

The British Hen Welfare Trust (formerly the Battery Hen Welfare Trust) is a national charity that re-homes commercial laying hens, educates the public about how they can make a difference to hen welfare, and encourages support for the British egg industry. Its ultimate aim is to see consumers and food manufacturers buying only UK produced free range eggs, resulting in a strong British egg industry where all commercial laying hens enjoy a good quality life.

We think all laying hens deserve to enjoy natural freedoms whilst they lay tasty eggs for us to eat; that means freedom to roam on green pasture, freedom to enjoy sunshine, freedom to scratch for insects and freedom to lay an egg in a nest.

Here’s what we do in a nutshell (or you could say eggshell):

• Each year we save approximately 50,000 hens from slaughter and find them caring pet homes through our network of 30 regional centres so they can enjoy a free range retirement.  Find out how our wonderful volunteers do it by reading ‘A Day in the Life of a Co-ordinator’.
  
• We educate consumers about the caged eggs hidden in processed foods, like pasta, quiche, cakes and mayonnaise so they can make an informed choice when shopping.
  
• Our positive campaign style has been described as pioneering and one of our most successful campaigns was in persuading Hellmanns to produce a free range mayonnaise; as a result thousands of hens now enjoy freedom.
• We take hens at the end of their commercial laying life from almost 50 farmers around the UK all of whom support our work.  Find out more about what we think about British farmers.
  
• We lobby MPs and MEPs to support British farmers and protect them from cheap imports where we have no control over welfare.
  
• We actively promote our Great British Free Range Farmer  – there’s a lot of happy hens free ranging the UK countryside because of their investment.  Read our latest free range farmer view here.
  
• We developed the original Eggsellence Award given to eating establishments that use only free range eggs.  You can nominate your favourite free range eatery here.