Cage-free eggs have become a hot trend for American restaurant chains, as activist groups are successfully dragging major food retailers into the middle of the ethical food production debate. While both consumers and U.S. retail industry restauranteurs have declared their public support for the cage-free movement, both groups have yet to convincingly demonstrate real loyalty for the cause with deeply committed actions.

Red Robin is the latest U.S. casual dining chain to announce that it will be using cage-free eggs in its restaurants. The company made a public commitment to go cage-free with at least one-third of its eggs beginning this month. By the end of 2010 the company vows that none of its eggs will originate from foul fowl sources.

This is a move that is aligned with the social responsibility that Red Robin demonstrates regularly, and for all of its principle-motivated decisions the company deserves applause. The value of this particular decision to the farm animal welfare movement, however, is really more about hype than substantive impact.

If you scan the Red Robin gourmet burger menu, it's a where's-Waldo kind of exercise to find any of its offerings that use eggs. Beyond the fried egg which tops its signature Royal Red Robin Burger, and the hard-boiled egg on its Cobb salad, eggs do not seem to be a key ingredient in any of the 59 other menu choices. So, to put Red Robin's cage-free commitment into perspective, 30% of the eggs that are used in 3% of its menu selections are now produced by chickens that have at lest enough room to flap their wings.

Mother-may-I take half of a baby step towards the reformation of the horrifically offensive operating practices of farm factories in America? Yes, you may.

Red Robin's egg use is negligible compared to the restaurant industry as a whole, so its shift to cage-free consumption is not going to make a dramatic impact on the lives of many chickens. This is not a criticism of Red Robin, but more an illustration of the realities of the morally desirable, but logistically challenged cage-free movement.

Currently only 5% of the eggs available in the U.S. today are produced in cage-free operations. Why? Because it's more expensive and there aren't enough customers willing to pay the higher price. It's strictly economics. If every restaurant in America simultaneously decided to stop purchasing eggs that were obtained from sources that were deemed to be "cruel,"�there simply would not be enough "humane" eggs to supply the demand.

Regardless of this supply and demand reality, organizations like the U.S. Humane Society (HSUS) and the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) are on the warpath with the cage-free issue, launching high profile campaigns targeted at some of the most popular publicly traded U.S. restaurant chains. McDonald's was a recent target. At the company's annual meeting in May, shareholders were asked to vote on a resolution which would compel the fast food chain to begin the transition to purchasing and serving only cage-free eggs. The resolution was initiated by HSUS and PETA, which reportedly own 101 and 79 shares of McDonald's stock, respectively.

Let's pause to enjoy the irony of this scenario. McDonald's sales and stock prices have been flourishing in this recession economy. So, with their stock ownership, both the Humane Society and PETA are both financially supporting and profiting from the very corporate practices that they label as unconscionable. Is anyone besides me amused by that?

In a statement made prior to that shareholder vote, Paul Shapiro, senior director of the HSUS factory farming campaign said, "It's time for the company [McDonald's] to realize that Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to this type of animal abuse and begin switching to cage-free eggs." Reality check, please. It's time for the animal rights advocates to realize that what Americans say and what Americans do are very often two different things.

While Americans may say in a survey that they are morally opposed to battery-cage conditions, if their behaviors matched their beliefs, they would simply stop visiting the McDonald's drive-thru at breakfast time. But they haven't stopped, by the millions. So, in reality, Americans want to have their cage-free chickens and eat their buy-one-get-one-free Egg McMuffins too.

So, everybody is verbally supporting the cage-free outcome, but nobody is proving that they are willing to sacrifice anything to obtain it. McDonald's same store sales continue to grow, so we can conclude that fast food diners are not as morally outraged as they are hungry and broke. And after 95% of the McDonald's shareholders voted against the HSUS/PETA cage-free resolution, we can also conclude that the golden profits of the golden arches are more important than the golden rule for a vast majority of the company's investors.

While I personally support the ideals of HSUS and PETA in this issue, I'm not sure it's really fair to force corporations to grow a conscience when consumers clearly aren't purchasing with theirs. When I looked in the egg cooler at my local Publix grocery store this afternoon, the supply of cheap antibiotic-laced eggs produced by hormone-fed, genetically-altered, physically-abused chickens had been depleted quite a bit. The stock of higher-priced eggs produced by happy, free-moving chickens seemed untouched in comparison.

Millions of people will be adding the 99-cent cartons of eggs to their grocery carts this week without regard to the well-being of the twelve hens that pushed out the product. So aren't the egg end-users the group of people that really should be in the HSUS and PETA crosshairs?

Targeting the fast food companies that make egg sandwiches probably isn't going to work as long as their cash registers are still getting filled by those who are eating the fast food egg sandiwches. Which comes first - the supply of cage-free chickens or the real demand for cage-free eggs backed by steadfast consuming behaviors? That's not really an unsolvable conundrum, is it?

To be fair, there are many companies in the U.S. retail industry that make decisions with a moral compass, leading change instead of reacting to consumer whims. Whole Foods stopped selling eggs from battery-caged hens in 2005. Ben and Jerry's committed to using only cage-free eggs in 2006. Both of these companies have been recognized and admired for their principle-centered practices for as long as they have been in business.

Burger King, Wendy's, Hardees and Carl's Jr. have also publicly committed to using cage-free eggs, but at last reports, 98 out of 100 eggs served at these restaurants are still produced by battery-caged birds. I guess 2% multiplied by several chains will add up eventually, but the big accolades that these companies are getting for such small commitments don't make their cage-free actions seem very authentically motivated.

Should we really be all that impressed by companies that are taking the cage-free high road because it's good for their image and doesn't cost them much? Or is eggwashing starting to be the new greenwashing?

If HSUS and PETA supporters walked into one of the restaurants with a 2% cage-free commitment, it's doubtful that they would be able to specifically request and receive a cage-free egg sandwich there. Let's face it, though. The HSUS and PETA supporters I know are not exactly the target market for these kinds of retail food chains anyway.

That, of course, is the fundamental challenge. Those who care don't consume the products and those who consume the products don't really care. Until one side or the other changes the way they participate in that paradigm, profit-motivated restaurant chains aren't likely to make any profound changes either.

While there are no real winners in the cage-free battle so far, it is clear that the big losers continue to be the chickens.

Or is it the eggs?

The three big losses in the entertainment industry last week have turned into huge gains for the retail industry as fans find room in their recessionary budgets to snatch up memorabilia by the millions. Amazon, eBay, and Apple's iTunes are among the U.S. retailers that are winning big with Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, and Ed McMahon merchandise sales, and they seem quite unapologetic about profiting from the deaths of three big entertainment icons.

Although the numbers are changing by the minute, Amazon has confirmed that the sale of Michael Jackson and Jackson 5 CDs and MP3s increased 322 times in the 24 hours after the legendary performer’s shocking death last Thursday. By the end of Friday, 14 of the top 15 iTunes downloads were Jackson songs. Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon were sold out of all Jackson-related merchandise very quickly, and are now taking orders that they hope the music industry and publishing industry will help them fill in the near future.

The big retail industry winner in the short-run is the selling agent of all things rare and wacky, eBay. At this writing more than 53,000 active auctions and more than 33,000 completed auctions are related to some sort of Michael Jackson or Jackson Five merchandise. There are also about 3,500 auctions with Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon merchandise as well. Just the listing fees from those auctions will pay eBay’s light bill for a while.

The $10 million auction of the KingMichaelJackson.com domain didn’t sell, but it was worth the $4.00 listing fee to give it a try. Shockingly, though, if we believe everything we see on the eBay site, the auction for MJsMemorial.com domain name was viewed by 290 people, and then the 291st person purchased it for $21 million.

Personally, I’m finding it hard to believe that this is a real sale at a real price that is really going to get paid. If Sony had put the MichaelJackson.com site on the auction block, then maybe the auction price would be justifiable. But “MJ’s Memorial” doesn’t really have the search engine clout or cache that demands a multimillion-dollar price tag. Even lunch with Warren Buffet only fetched $1.68 million on the eBay auction block. Buffet’s been around a lot longer than MJsMemorial.com.

If the domain auction transaction is legitimate, though, then some enterprising teenager in Dexter, Oregon just turned a 20,000,000% profit in 48 hours. (I’m just guessing that the seller is a teenager based on the sophistication level of the auction listing.) And if this is true, then eBay, the seller of everything and owner of nothing, will get a nifty go-between fee of $1,575,000.00.

If this top auction doesn’t finalize, though, perhaps the $19 million MemoryofMichaelJackson.com, the $10 million InMemoryOfMichaelJackson.com, or the $6.5 million MichaelTheKingOfPopJacksom.com auction bids will prove themselves to be real. If even one of these deals goes through, it may be a sign to U.S. retailing that we should all consider adding domain resales into our retail product mix.

In any case, there are tens of thousands of autographed Jackson photos, vinyl albums, CDs, posters, cards, programs, guitars, and magazines waiting for bids, buy-it-nows and best offers on eBay right now. (Michael must have spent an awful lot of his fifty years writing his name, if all of these authentic autographs are really authentic.) You’ll have to look a little harder to find the truly unique items like the autographed drum heads, the Thriller commemorative iPod Touch, the Thriller Platinum Award, and the signed movie contract.

Also, there are apparently a lot of people all over the world who have had a “Beat It” red leather (or vinyl) jacket hanging in their closet for almost 30 years which they are willing to part with for the right price. For $600 or less you can hang one of the jackets in your own closet for the next thirty years.

In the midst of this retail frenzy, the least frazzled retail CEO is probably eBay’s John Donahoe, who can now sleep a little bit easier, knowing that there will be enough money in the company’s PayPal account to cover another multimillion-dollar compensation package for him this year. It would do a lot for eBay’s image within its own community if the company would share some of this king-of-pop booty with a relevant charitable organization. There are shareholders to impress, however, and since eBay's performance has been depressed for a while, the eBay boardroom is probably more eager to boost its net profits than its brand image.

Speaking of image... more about Michael Jackson's death and the retail industry...

A survey conducted by America’s Research Group revealed that 30% of American consumers planned to spend more money in May than they had in April, but 27% would only purchase merchandise that was marked down 50% or more. The Mother’s Day Holiday promised to give May sales a boost, but rising gas prices cut shopping budgets even more. Last year’s May had the infusion of $50 billion in tax refund money, while this year’s May had the inclusion of the entire Memorial Day weekend, a phenomenon that happens only once every 11 years.

When you factor all those conditions and look at the May same store sales numbers compared to charts which no longer include Wal-Mart’s numbers, what do you get? You get a whole bunch of numbers interpreted from a whole bunch of different angles. What you don’t get are many surprises or clear conclusions.

As is the case with so many aspects of retailing, same store sales analysts were looking for a new normal in May, since monthly same store figures no longer include Wal-Mart’s numbers. The easy solution for analysts was to pull up the spreadsheets, strip Wal-Mart out of the equation for the past 15 years, and redraw the charts as if the world’s largest retailer was not part of the U.S. retail industry. Simple enough.

This statistical manipulation makes the recent past look a lot worse, but it also provides a big picture look that is somewhat comforting as well. There are other points in the past when Wal-Mart significantly outperformed the rest of the U.S. retail industry, but everybody got back into alignment eventually. We can all find comfort in the hope that retail history will repeat itself in this way again. The big question is how long “eventually” will take.

Without the Wal-Mart benchmark, and the easy Wal-Mart story angle, the significance of monthly same store sales primarily lies in the comparison of individual retailer numbers with their own past performance. Perhaps that makes more sense anyway.

For the first time in seven months... more...

The numbers from U.S. retail industry in the first two weeks of June tell many different stories depending on the bearish or bullish theory that you’re currently trying to support. New store opening figures have outnumbered store closing additions so far, but just as one publicly traded retailer finds 75 million ways to stay in business, rumors swirled around another major apparel brand that is expected to file Chapter 11 papers any day now. When you add them all together, the retail industry numbers so far this month don’t exactly total up to equal “recovery.”

Talbots feels pretty certain that most of its problems have been solved now that it has finally sold its J. Jill brand for $75 million. Golden Gate Capital is the purchaser of 204 J. Jill stores, which reportedly, they will continue to operate. Talbots has actively been trying to unload the J. Jill chain since November, 2008. Talbots’ leaders seem openly and publicly relieved to get those specialty stores off the balance sheet.

To get back on firm financial footing, Talbots will add the remaining 75 J. Jill locations that nobody wants, along with 16 underperforming Talbots operations to the 2009 retail store closings tally. Company leaders expressed confidence that these dramatic moves, coupled with a 20% reduction in its corporate staff, will allow it to focus on bringing Talbots back to profitability. If that means that they are now giving their focus to stocking their stores with relevant clothing that women actually want to wear, then they will definitely be traveling down recovery road.

Golden Gate Capital, by the way, has gobbled up a diverse collection of retail companies in the past five years. It is now the money and the management behind Express, Spiegel, Newport News, and Herbalife, among others. Since many of these companies were in trouble at the time of acquisition, one has to wonder what the Golden Gate leaders know that the original retail leaders couldn’t figure out. Whatever they know, it seems to work equally well for apparel stores, direct mail catalogs, nutritional supplement MLMs and high-tech businesses alike.

Maybe some members of the U.S. retail industry will start looking for some fresh leadership faces on the pages of Golden Gate’s website. Perhaps the current cadre of retail CEOs has been recycled between the major retail organizations quite enough.

Closings of a different kind are being utilized by some retailers who are still struggling to survive... more...