Ambitious Impact (AIM) exists to enable more effective charities to exist worldwide. We strive to achieve this goal through our extensive research process and Incubation Program. We give talented potential entrepreneurs two months of cost-covered, intensive training designed by founders for founders. Our talented researchers and entrepreneurs identify evidence-based, high-impact interventions and help founders find a co-founder to launch the idea and reach scale.

Note to readers: Our research is geared toward AIM decision-makers and program participants. We attempt to find the best ideas for our incubation programs through these reports. Given our commitment to focusing on recommended ideas, reports on those not recommended for incubation can often be less polished.

For questions about the content of this research, please contact Vasco Grilo. For questions about the research process, please contact Morgan Fairless.

This report was written as part of AIM’s research program from September to December of 2024. Thanks to Vicky Cox for guidance and feedback on the report. Thanks to Edo Arad and Filip Murár for initial research on the idea. Thanks to Anonymous 1, Anonymous 2, Anonymous 3, Anonymous 4, Anonymous 5, Jennifer Behr (ChooseVeg), and Nick Cooney (Lever VC) for feedback on the idea.^[1]

Executive summary

The benefits of replacing processed (ingredient-level) eggs with plant-based ingredients are potentially very large. There are 8.3 billion laying hens globally, and many of the eggs laid by these hens are used as processed eggs. For example, 29.3% of the eggs produced in the United States (US) in 2022 were processed.

There are many existing efforts pushing for plant-based foods, but explicitly advocating for companies to adopt egg replacement solutions, and helping them transition is still very neglected. We think the 2 nonprofits working on this, Vegan-Friendly and the Lever Foundation, have only spent a few hundreds of thousands of dollars on it so far.

Vegan-Friendly’s egg replacement program targets producers in Israel, and has had many successes in 2023 and 2024, but we estimate its cost-effectiveness over these years is 7.62% of our bar of 30 suffering-adjusted days (SADs) per $, and 2.90% of our estimated cost-effectiveness of cage-free campaigns of 78.8 SADs/$. The Lever Foundation started targeting large companies in the US and Europe in the 2nd quarter of 2024, but will only have results about its cost-effectiveness in 12 to 18 months.

Our most promising country is the US, for which we calculate a cost-effectiveness of working with producers equal to 64.1% of our bar, and 24.4% of our estimated cost-effectiveness of cage-free campaigns. The key uncertainty is how cost-effectiveness scales with the egg production of the country. The cost-effectiveness of the US is 8.41 times the one we estimate for Vegan-Friendly’s egg replacement program mostly because egg production in the US is 38.2 times as large as in Israel. Nonetheless, reasonable alternative assumptions can bring the most promising country above our bar.

We think targeting producers is better than retailers. Retailers sell many products besides ones with processed eggs, so the benefits from them adopting egg replacement solutions are relatively much smaller for them than for producers. Nonetheless, working with producers is more challenging in terms of implementation due to stricter talent requirements. Working with retailers would mostly involve good sales/outreach capabilities. For working with producers, it would additionally be useful to have knowledge about food engineering and science in the context of mid to large companies.

We do not think large multinational companies are the best targets. We believe they are less affected by the unstable cost of eggs, and are already aware of egg replacement solutions, but have not adopted them thanks to the economies of scale facilitated by eggs, which can be included in many products due to their high functionality. One expert suggested targeting producers whose factories deal with a few to tens of millions of eggs per year.

We recommend against starting a new organization explicitly advocating for companies to adopt egg replacement solutions. The Lever Foundation is working in our most promising country, and it is unclear to us whether a new organization doing similar work would meet our cost-effectiveness bar, so we believe it is better to wait until they have results about their cost-effectiveness before considering starting a new organization.

Meanwhile, we believe it would be good to experiment with running allergy-motivated public-facing campaigns against companies to pressure them into removing processed eggs from their products. We are not aware of this having been tried, and think it may significantly boost the successes of organizations like Vegan-Friendly and the Lever Foundation. However, such campaigns had better be conducted by an existing organization helping people with allergies instead of a new one working on animal welfare, such that the asks are not perceived as insincere.

1 Background

1.1 Context

Ambitious Impact (AIM) exists to increase the number and quality of effective nonprofits working to improve human and animal wellbeing. AIM connects talented individuals with high-impact ideas. We give potential entrepreneurs intensive training and ongoing support to launch ideas to scale. Our research team focuses on finding impactful opportunities.^[2]

As part of our 2024 research agenda, we reviewed interventions to avert the suffering of farmed animals. This report overviews our findings about advocacy for egg replacement solutions.

1.2 Introduction to the idea and problem

In this report, we assess the promise of starting an organization advocating for companies to replace processed eggs in their products with plant-based ingredients. We focus on eggs over other animal-based ingredients because we believe that eggs are among the animal products that cause the most suffering. We also think that replacing eggs may be relatively easier than replacing other products.

As for the potential benefits of replacing eggs, there are around 8.3 billion laying hens globally (Our World in Data, 2023), most of which live in cages (Welfare Footprint Project, 2022), and a significant share supports the industry of processed eggs. In the US, 29.3% of the produced eggs were processed in 2022 (United Egg Producers, 2022), i.e. not sold as shell eggs to retailers or food services (nor exported). In the European Union (EU), 20% of produced eggs were processed in 2002 (European Commision, 2003), and this fraction was expected to increase to more than 30% until 2012. Assuming 20% of eggs are processed globally, to account for an expected lower fraction in lower-income countries, 1.66 billion laying hens would be linked to the production of processed eggs.

In terms of difficulty, replacing processed eggs with plant-based ingredients is easier than replacing whole eggs, meat, or animal-based seafood. Replacing dairy ingredients may well be easier, but we believe its potential benefits are much smaller. There are 270 million dairy cows globally (Compassion in World Farming, 2024), which is 16.3% of the number of laying hens linked to processed eggs suggested above. Furthermore, laying hens probably live much worse lives than dairy cows.

Companies may want to replace processed eggs with plant-based ingredients to have lower greenhouse gas emissions, more stable costs, and fewer allergens (Lever Foundation, 2024).

2 Theory of change

2.1 Causal chain and assumptions

Below is the causal chain of the theory of change. Green is for low uncertainty, yellow for medium uncertainty, and red for high uncertainty. The activities regarding pressure campaigns have dotted arrows coming out of their boxes because they are optional.

The assumptions are:

1. Countries suitable for pressure campaigns motivated by egg allergies can be identified (low uncertainty). “Around the world, half a billion people [6.34% (= 0.5/7.89)], including close to 85 million in the United States [25.1% (= 85/339)], avoid allergens when shopping for food and beverages” (McKinsey, 2020).
2. Producers or retailers whose products sold in the suitable countries have many processed eggs in total can be identified (low uncertainty). We believe the retailers with the largest revenue in the most promising countries are good targets.

3. Egg replacement solutions or suppliers can be identified (low uncertainty). The Lever Foundation has a directory listing 53 suppliers across 18 different applications (Lever Foundation, 2024).^[3]

4. Persuasive campaign materials can be created (low uncertainty). Lever Foundation’s directory mentions replacing eggs with plant-based ingredients results in lower greenhouse gas emissions, more stable costs, appeal to plant-based consumers, and fewer allergens. Of course, there are also animal welfare benefits. We believe eggs being a common allergen is the most suitable topic for pressure campaigns, although the other benefits can also be persuasive to companies.
5. One can identify and build relationships with contacts and key decision makers at the target companies (low uncertainty). This has been the case for other animal welfare campaigns such as cage-free corporate campaigns, and the organizations that have worked on these campaigns can potentially share their contacts at the companies they have reached out to.
6. Campaign materials and relationships with the companies are persuasive enough to get meetings with them without launching public-facing pressure campaigns (low uncertainty). This has been the case for other animal welfare campaigns such as cage-free corporate campaigns.
7. There are resources for pressure campaigns ready for deployment (high uncertainty), such as volunteers which can power digital media and grassroots actions, stories about people affected by egg allergies, and budget for targeted advertising. This has been the case for animal welfare campaigns, and seemingly so too in the context of pushing for products more friendly to people with allergies, as illustrated by the support of the Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE). Nevertheless, we think it would be difficult for a new organization with just 2 co-founders to mobilize the required resources without significant support from more established organizations.
8. Pressure campaigns against the companies damage their reputation enough to get meetings with them (low uncertainty). This has been the case for existing animal welfare campaigns.
9. Campaign materials, meetings and eventual pressure campaigns are persuasive enough for companies to commit to removing processed eggs from their products (high uncertainty). Producers and retailers have introduced more (partly or fully) plant-based products (e.g. Hellmann’ vegan mayo), but not eliminated animal-based ingredients from a certain range of products as the result of campaigns (as opposed to natural market forces). It would be easier to get companies to partly replace processed eggs in some or all products, but this would add complexity to the ask, which we see as a significant drawback.
10. Companies follow through on their commitments (medium uncertainty). 89% (1201) of the companies which pledged to go cage-free until the end of 2023 did so until April 2024 (Open Wing Alliance, 2024), but it is not totally clear whether commitments to sell products with less processed eggs would be fulfilled at such a high rate.
11. The replaced eggs mostly come from chickens with negative lives (medium uncertainty). We think hens’ in conventional cages have negative lives, but that their conditions may improve sufficiently in the next few decades for their lives to become positive in some countries (Grilo, 2024a; Grilo, 2024b).

2.2 Implementing the idea as a new organization, or new project within an existing organization?

We suggest implementing the idea as a new organization if allergy-motivated pressure campaigns are not part of the core theory of change. Otherwise, we suggest implementing the idea as a project within an existing organization helping people with allergies, even if it eventually spins out to an independent organization. This would help ensure there are resources for pressure campaigns ready for deployment, which is one of the 2 high uncertainties we highlighted above. We think the host organization would have to be connected with allergies instead of animal welfare to mitigate the risk of allergy-motivated campaigns being perceived as insincere due to ultimately aiming to decrease animal suffering. In any case, collaborations with organizations working on animal welfare and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions may well be worth it.

2.3 Targeting producers or retailers?

We think targeting producers is better than retailers. Retailers sell many products besides ones with processed eggs, so the benefits from them adopting egg replacement solutions are relatively much smaller for them than for producers. In addition, the precedents discussed in the next section involved producers, not retailers (although the Lever Foundation works with both). However, we expect working with producers to be more challenging in terms of implementation due to stricter talent requirements.

3 Quality of evidence

3.1 The new organization or project will replace eggs?

There is only weak evidence that campaign materials, meetings and eventual pressure campaigns are persuasive enough for companies to commit to removing processed eggs from their products, and follow through on their commitments.

ChooseVeg’s efforts in the spring of 2023 sped up the replacement of 27.4 k eggs used per year in the Cherry Creek School District (ChooseVeg, 2024),^[4] starting in September 2023.^[5] Assuming a speed-up of 10 years, we think a new organization would have to achieve 268 similar successes per year to match our cost-effectiveness bar, as we estimate it would have to replace 73.2 M eggs per year in that case.

Vegan-Friendly sped up the egg replacement of producers in Israel using 529 k eggs per year in 2023 (Vegan-Friendly, 2024a), and finalized an egg replacement project in 2024 with one of Israel's largest backing factories, which uses 3 M eggs per year (Vegan-Friendly, 2024b). We believe a new organization would have to work on a larger scale to meet our cost-effectiveness bar, and discuss the cost-effectiveness of Vegan-Friendly later on.

The Lever Foundation is working to replace the processed eggs of companies in Europe and the US, and targeting larger producers than those targeted by Vegan-Friendly in Israel. Nick Cooney, founder and board director of the Lever Foundation, said they do not have results yet, as they only reached out to producers and retailers in the 2nd quarter of 2024. Nick guessed it will take 12 to 18 months to have enough information to have a sense of their cost-effectiveness.

None of the above organizations has run pressure campaigns as part of their advocacy for egg replacement solutions, and we are also not aware of organizations helping people with allergies having conducted campaigns against companies asking them to remove eggs instead of e.g. improving labeling. We suspect these campaigns would not have much success. Corporate campaigns focussed on animal welfare have been successful to make companies improve the conditions of farmed animals (Open Wing Alliance, 2024), but there is widespread public support for this. We predict much less people would support forcing companies to sell products with less processed eggs and more plant-based ingredients. However, we have not investigated the matter, and have not received feedback from the experts we contacted.

3.2 Replacing eggs with plant-based ingredients increases animal welfare?

We are confident that eggs replaced now increase animal welfare, making it less negative, because they come from chickens with negative lives. Charity Entrepreneurship (2018) estimated a welfare per living time for factory-farmed laying hens in the EU in enriched cages and in the US in battery cages of -46 and -57, where the minimum and maximum possible values of -100 and 100 correspond to the worst and best possible welfare per living time. Grilo (2024b) estimated a welfare per living time of hens in conventional cages and cage-free aviaries of -1.69 and -0.333, where 1 would correspond to a practically maximally happy life.^[6]

However, we believe eggs replaced in a few decades may decrease animal welfare, making it less positive, because hens’ lives may be positive by then in some countries. Based on Grilo (2024b), cage-free campaigns increase welfare per living time by 80.4%, which is not far from the increase of 100 % that would be obtained for improved conditions respecting neutral lives. In addition, it may not take that long for such improvement to materialize. The number of cage-free hens in the US increased from 3% to 40% in the last 15 years (The Humane Society of the United States, 2024), i.e. from 2009 (= 2024 - 15) to 2024.

4 Expert views

Key takeaways

We draw the following conclusions based on the feedback we received from experts:

• Processed eggs are the most promising ingredient to replace with plant-based ones.
• Processed eggs in bakery products are among the easiest to replace.
• Explicitly advocating for egg replacement solutions is very neglected in the nonprofit sector.
• Producers will only adopt egg replacement solutions if they make products cheaper or increase their quality.
• It is harder to speed up the adoption of egg replacement solutions by larger producers, as they are more aware of egg replacement solutions.
• It is unclear whether public-facing pressure campaigns would make the companies remove processed eggs from their products.
• Targeting producers is more promising than retailers.
• 2 key skills to succeed implementing the idea are good sales/outreach capabilities, and knowledge about food engineering and science.

We elaborate on the expert views below. The experts are ordered alphabetically. Here are the initial questions we asked.

Anonymous 1

Anonymous 1 is a project manager of Vegan-Friendly. Their food ingredients project provides personalized plant-based solutions to producers under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), overwhelmingly by replacing processed eggs, but also some dairy, with plant-based ingredients.

Anonymous 1 mentioned their successful projects can take anything from 2 months to 2 years, but noted it is good to start with quick wins to build trust with new producers. Anonymous 1 said quick wins mostly involve replacing processed eggs instead of dairy as dairy replacement is generally more technically challenging.

Anonymous 1 agreed that although larger producers deal with more eggs, the speed-up of the adoption of egg replacement solutions is smaller for them. This is because larger producers have more means to monitor potentially cheaper or tastier formulations of their products and are more likely to already be aware of plant-based solutions.

Anonymous 1 argued producers only adopt egg replacement solutions if these cut costs, but that replacing eggs in pastry products with plant-based ingredients makes them cheaper in most cases. Relatedly, Anonymous 1 explained they try as hard as possible to avoid egg substitutes like JUST Egg because they increase costs.

Anonymous 1 did not see an obvious relationship between the cost of designing an egg replacement solution and the scale of the producer (e.g. whether the cost increases or decreases with scale), even holding the final product constant. Anonymous 1 noted their successful project with one of Israel's largest backing factories was one of the cheapest, even though that was the producer they worked with using the most eggs per year.^[7] Anonymous 1 clarified they essentially only had to connect the factory with suppliers, and make sure they were working on replacing eggs, with only a minority of that project being about designing an egg replacement solution.

Anonymous 1 thought public-facing pressure campaigns may be useful, but warned they are only familiar with Israel, and that such campaigns can be very political there and elsewhere. Anonymous 1 noted the companies have an incentive to adopt egg replacement solutions if these decrease costs, but agreed public pressure and demand can speed up the adoption. Anonymous 1 emphasized Vegan-Friendly’s community in Israel is quite important, as it will know about new plant-based products resulting from their projects as soon as these are finalized, and therefore increase their demand.

Anonymous 2

Anonymous 2 played a key role in establishing a major alternative protein company.

Anonymous 2 was very pessimistic about persuading companies to replace processed eggs with plant-based ingredients without public pressure. Anonymous 2 noted Eat Just initially pitched egg replacement solutions to large producers as having the potential to achieve the gustatory properties of eggs, given an appropriate investment in research and development (R&D), while decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing costs, appealing to plant-based consumers, having less allergens, and causing less animal suffering. However, Anonymous 2 said that did not work, which prompted them to pivot towards offering fully plant-based products.

Anonymous 2 explained large producers have a stranglehold on the R&D of their products, and therefore there is little a small nonprofit can do to influence the ingredients of their products. Anonymous 2 mentioned they are already intensively testing many candidate reformulations, and have a long list of ones to test. Anonymous 2 argued they are most likely aware of egg replacement solutions. Even if not, Anonymous 2 emphasized they would not make them a priority for testing because eggs work, and they have many other issues that they will prioritize instead. We believe Anonymous 2’s concerns apply to large producers globally, although Anonymous 2 caveated only having experience in the US.

Anonymous 2 agreed a small nonprofit would more easily influence smaller producers. Nonetheless, Anonymous 2 was still pessimistic given this approach would be less scalable, and smaller producers have a higher chance of reverting back to formulations with more eggs.

Anonymous 2 highlighted public pressure is key for the leadership of companies to discuss egg replacement solutions. Without it, Anonymous 2 said suggestions for replacing eggs could easily not leave a long list of ideas of teams working on R&D.

Anonymous 2 proposed creating public pressure campaigns about allergies to eggs, the 2nd most common allergy in the US,^[8] especially in kids.^[9] Anonymous 2 mentioned there are nonprofits in the US working on allergies, but was not aware of any explicitly focused on eggs and campaigning against companies.

Anonymous 2 suggested it may be good for the name of a new organization running such campaigns to include “kids” and “families”,^[10] but not “egg”, even if the focus is on decreasing the consumption of eggs. Anonymous 2 exemplified the organization could create videos of mothers concerned about their young kids eating foods with processed eggs, which they cannot permanently watch out for, or write online reviews about negative experiences of (mistakenly) consuming products with processed eggs.

Anonymous 2 was not confident the allergy-motivated campaigns would succeed, but argued they are worth trying given their potentially high upside.

Anonymous 3

Anonymous 3 has a leadership position in an organization promoting plant-based diets.

Anonymous 3 was pessimistic about starting an organization working with producers to replace processed eggs with plant-based ingredients. “The task of replacing specific ingredients or products in foodservice requires a deep level of culinary and technical expertise, as well as a deep understanding of the immense complexity of supply chains and food businesses. In short, I don't think that this would be a good fit for a new, small non-profit”. “JUST (formerly Hampton Creek) has now spent over a decade working to replace egg ingredients and products with plant-based alternatives, and the EVERY Company (formerly Clara Foods) has also spent close to a decade working to replace egg ingredients with precision fermentation products. Both companies have huge teams of chefs, food technologists, people with deep ties to the food industry, and sales teams. While both have made huge strides, neither of them have yet cracked it”.

Anonymous 3 was also unenthusiastic about performing corporate campaigns to pressure companies. “Sometimes it can be helpful to have a non-profit playing the "bad cop" to campaign against companies that refuse to implement changes, but usually that only works when the industry has reached a tipping point of viability for new products and a critical mass of adoption. It doesn't seem that we're at that point yet with egg replacements. What will actually do the trick is having a product that is cheaper and easier to source than eggs, and that's not an issue that a small non-profit can likely solve”.

Anonymous 4

Anonymous 4 is the chief of staff of a major alternative protein company.

Anonymous 4 agreed with targeting processed eggs over other animal-based ingredients given the greater instability of their prices.

Anonymous 4 explained eggs’ high functionality is the main barrier preventing their replacement. Anonymous 4 noted individual plant-based ingredients can only perform specific functions of eggs, which means replacing these often requires using many plant-based ingredients, and therefore making significant changes to the supply chain and production processes.

Anonymous 4 argued that some producers lack an understanding of how to replace processed eggs and that a nonprofit could build awareness of solutions as well as their advantages and limitations. Anonymous 4 was enthusiastic about a nonprofit working to find direct replacement opportunities and providing user guides for how to perform the replacements if there are no such opportunities. We think GFI has done some work along these lines (Grizio and Specht, 2018).

Anonymous 4 identified medium-scale producers as the optimum targets and clarified each of their factories would deal with 100 to 500 tonnes of dry eggs per year, which we estimate corresponds to 7.09 M to 35.5 M eggs per year.^[11] Anonymous 4 argued targeting such producers offers a good combination of potential benefits, and probability of realizing such benefits. In addition, Anonymous 4 agreed medium companies successfully replacing eggs would increase the chance of larger ones transitioning, ensuring them of consumer acceptance.

Anonymous 4 mentioned large producers are currently protected from the economic disadvantages of eggs (though not fully so), as they have more suppliers, and are prioritized over smaller producers. Anonymous 4 also noted they have more products, and operate in more geographies, thus having to make more changes to their production processes and supply changes. In addition, Anonymous 4 commented that large producers benefit from economies of scale, which makes it difficult to decrease costs by replacing eggs in a single product.

Crucially, Anonymous 4 observed that all the large companies have tried to replace eggs because they pose a significant business continuity risk, but they have so far not found anything that meets the bar in terms of cost and taste. Companies like Eat Just and The EVERY Company are also working on developing egg replacement solutions that simultaneously offer many of the functions of eggs.

Anonymous 4 liked the strategy of replacing eggs instead of making products fully plant-based, given the much larger market for the former.

Anonymous 4 was not particularly optimistic about public-facing pressure campaigns. Anonymous 4 warned about the power of the egg lobby, and that companies will only replace eggs if this decreases costs or improves the quality of their products. Anonymous 4 recommended justifying the replacement on economic grounds.

Anonymous 5

Anonymous 5 is a food scientist with over 20 years of experience in the food industry, and a former research fellow at an organization promoting plant-based and cultivated proteins.

Anonymous 5 highlighted companies producing ingredients that replace processed eggs are “naturally incentivized to promote their ingredients and can also directly provide the ingredients (unlike a nonprofit organization) and application (product development) support through their technical services departments”. In addition, Anonymous 5 remarked the companies providing the plant-based ingredients actively target producers, “through marketing and sales visits, sharing consumer demand and trend data, providing application support, recommending usage levels, and sometimes providing formulations using the ingredient in various types of products”.

Anonymous 5 is most excited about replacing processed eggs in the baking industry. She also noted that replacing processed eggs with a plant-based ingredient in the same quantity is the most appealing solution.

Anonymous 5 mentioned that The Good Food Institute (GFI) has advocated for producers to replace processed eggs with plant-based ingredients, although this has never been a major focus, via a white paper on plant-based egg alternatives (Grizio & Specht, 2018), “creating online ingredient directories, and presenting webinars showing consumer demand data”.

Jennifer Behr (ChooseVeg)

Jennifer is the corporate partnerships lead of ChooseVeg.

Jennifer was interested in the idea, and mentioned there is room for this work in the US, which is the country they are familiar with. Jennifer agreed that processed (ingredient-level) eggs and dairy are more easily replaceable than meat and eggs which are the main component of a meal, as boiled or scrambled eggs.

Jennifer’s main concerns are ensuring that egg replacement solutions decrease or do not change the cost, and that there is demand for such solutions. She has lots of experience talking with restaurants, food services, and providers of consumer packaged goods (CPGs) about offering more plant-based products and has made some connections with plant-based solution providers, but there has been no impact. The companies are not really demanding plant-based alternatives. Campaign pressure is needed to create that demand.

Jennifer agreed allergen-motivated campaigns could be useful to force companies to act, and that they had better not be done by an animal welfare organization. Additionally, Jennifer suggested the campaigns could target products where all processed eggs can easily be removed, and then have a simple ask for that. However, Jennifer warned allergies to products containing processed eggs would only affect a small fraction of the population, because eggs may become less allergenic during processing. We also note they may be present in the final product in small quantities.

Jennifer said it was probably better to work with producers than retailers, as these are very keen to offer a wide range of products to satisfy all consumer preferences. In particular, Jennifer suggested working with large consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies and restaurants in the US or Europe, where per capita meat consumption is decreasing in many countries, could be promising. Lastly, Jennifer guessed companies that have failed their cage-free commitments may be interested in making up for this by replacing processed eggs.

Jennifer pointed out Greener by Default and Better Food Foundation focus on a variety of strategies to increase the consumption of plant-based foods, but without paying special attention to replacing processed eggs, although they discuss replacing animal-based ingredients. Jennifer added the Plant Based Foods Association (PBFA) promotes plant-based foods more broadly.

Jennifer was not confident about the optimal size of the target companies. Jennifer remarked smaller companies can adopt egg replacement solutions faster, but would likely be less willing to do so given their smaller capacity and lower number of products, which make changes more risky.

Jennifer argued the new organization or project would benefit from operating within a coalition of companies working in the plant-based, sustainability and animal welfare space. Yet, Jennifer thought it would be most impactful by bringing a new perspective to the table, like allergies, instead of replicating existing arguments.

Nick Cooney (Lever VC)

Nick is a managing partner of Lever VC, founder and board director of the Lever Foundation, and founder of The Humane League (THL).

Nick mentioned that the Lever Foundation only started to reach out to companies in the 2nd quarter of 2024, and guessed it would take 12 to 18 months to have enough information to have a sense of their cost-effectiveness.

Nick clarified that the Lever Foundation is working with both retailers and producers, and it does not yet have a view on which approach is more cost-effective. Nick said retailers would mostly benefit from marketing themselves as more sustainable, and producers from having more stable and lower costs.

Nick said the Lever Foundation does not have anyone working full-time on their egg replacement project, but that they will soon. Nick was also not aware of other nonprofits besides the Lever Foundation and Vegan-Friendly explicitly focused on advocating for egg replacement solutions (instead of plant-based ingredients and foods more broadly, as done by GFI).

Nick explained that the Lever Foundation is working with companies in Europe and the US, as animal welfare campaigns have also started there. Nick agreed there is less knowledge about egg replacement solutions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), but implied that the pressure from the public and self-imposed by companies to decrease animal suffering, greenhouse gas emissions, and allergens is stronger in high-income countries, such that these offer a better testbed. Nick was enthusiastic about expanding similar efforts to Asia if they were successful in Europe and the US.

Nick said the Lever Foundation has so far reached out to large and often international companies because these deal with more eggs, but agreed these are harder to influence than medium-size companies, thus not having a strong view about the optimal size of the target companies. Nick mentioned they have not prioritized some types of products over others, casting a wide net, as many companies will not be open to changes, and getting some traction is important.

Nick argued the work of nonprofits could still be a huge addition to the efforts of companies providing egg replacement solutions. Without it, Nick guessed around 90% of the companies would not adopt egg replacement solutions in the next 5 to 10 years.^[12] Nick acknowledged the companies have an economic incentive to promote their products, but noted they often have a wide range of offers, and no special interest in selling egg replacement solutions. Nick also remarked that the work of nonprofits has been instrumental in freeing hens from cages, despite many companies selling eggs from cage-free hens. Nick explained that nonprofits can talk to sustainability managers and leverage public pressure much more easily.

Nick claimed the main barriers to replacing processed eggs are not technical, but rather about lack of information and especially motivation. In particular, Nick highlighted R&D managers do not have an incentive from leadership to adopt egg replacement solutions, as eggs do the job. Nick thought well-run public-facing pressure campaigns could provide that incentive, and therefore dramatically increase the number of companies adopting egg replacement solutions.

Nick underlined 3 key skills for advocating for egg replacement solutions. Good sales/outreach capabilities, knowledge about food engineering and science in the context of mid to large companies, and ability to run public pressure campaigns well.

Nick recommended starting a new project within an established organization instead of an independent organization. This would help with activities common across organizations, like fundraising and hiring, and facilitate running pressure campaigns by leveraging the network and resources of a suitable host organization.

5 Geographic assessment

We assume the cost-effectiveness without pressure campaigns is proportional to the square root of the egg production in 2022, SADs per hen-year in 2024 (a function of the fraction of hens in cages), meat supply per capita in 2001 as a fraction of that in 2021 (excluding aquatic animals), decimal logarithm of the gross national income per capita in 2021, and Varieties of Democracy’s electoral democracy index in 2023. Additionally, we suppose the cost-effectiveness with pressure campaigns is proportional to the cost-effectiveness without them and square root of the expected number of people actively involved in helping people with allergies to eggs (via their work or volunteering).

We suppose targeting countries with greater egg production is better all else equal, but just because this offers a proxy for the number of suitable medium size companies worth working with. We agree with Anonymous 1 and Anonymous 4 that the largest companies are not the optimal targets.

We set the cost-effectiveness without pressure campaigns in Israel to that of Vegan-Friendly's egg replacement program in 2023 and 2024. Note that Vegan-Friendly only offers fully plant-based solutions, and it is easier to replace processed eggs regardless of whether the final product is fully plant-based or not, which contributes to our proposed organization being more cost-effective. On the other hand, the observed cost-effectiveness of Vegan-Friendly is conditioned on success, and we suspect the factors of our model underestimate the promise of working in Israel due to our impression of plant-based products being more demanded there, which update us towards our proposed organization being less cost-effective. Overall, we are unsure how these considerations net out.

Below is the cost-effectiveness of the 10 most promising countries without pressure campaigns in SADs/$ and as a fraction of our cost-effectiveness bar of 30 SADs/$, and with pressure campaigns as a fraction of that of the best country. The countries are ordered by descending cost-effectiveness. Here is the sheet with the calculations.

The cost-effectiveness of work without pressure campaigns in the US is 8.41 times that of Israel. As illustrated below, this is essentially explained by egg production in the US being 38.2 (= 6.53/0.171) times as large as in Israel, which alone makes the cost-effectiveness without pressure campaigns in the US 6.18 (= 38.2^0.5) times that of Israel. The other variables besides egg production are similar, so they do not drive large differences between the cost-effectiveness without pressure campaigns in the US and Israel.

6 Cost-effectiveness analyses

We calculate a cost-effective for Vegan-Friendly’s egg replacement project, which involves working with producers, in 2023 and 2024 of 2.29 SADs/$, respecting an annual cost of 135 k$, and 49.8 eggs replaced per $.^[13] That cost-effectiveness is 7.62% of our bar, and 2.90% of our estimated cost-effectiveness of cage-free campaigns of 78.8 SADs/$.

We estimate a new organization working with producers without pressure campaigns in the US (our most promising country), as the Lever Foundation is doing,^[14] would have a cost-effectiveness of 19.2 SADs/$, replacing 418 eggs per $. That is 64.1% of our bar,^[15] and 24.4% of our estimated cost-effectiveness of cage-free campaigns. For our estimated annual discounted cost of $112 k over 30 years, the new organization would have to replace 46.9 M eggs per year, which is 7.71% of our estimate for the eggs linked to Hellmann's / Best Foods' mayo in 2023.^[16]

We think that how the cost-effectiveness scales with egg production is the key uncertainty. Besides egg production essentially explaining why our cost-effectiveness for the US is much higher than for Israel, small changes in the relationship between egg production and the cost-effectiveness without pressure campaigns are the only ones which can update the cost-effectiveness without pressure campaigns in the most promising country (always the US) to above our bar. Assuming the cost-effectiveness without pressure campaigns is proportional to:

• The egg production in 2022 to the power of 1/3 and 2/3 (1/6 below and above our baseline value of 1/2), it would be 34.9% and 117% of our bar, respectively.
• The SADs per hen-year in 2024 to the power of 5/6 and 7/6 (1/6 below and above our baseline value of 1), it would be 64.3% and 63.8% of our bar, respectively.
• The meat supply per capita in 2001 as a fraction of that in 2021 (excluding aquatic animals) to the power of 5/6 and 7/6 (1/6 below and above our baseline value of 1), it would be 62.6% and 65.5% of our bar, respectively.
• The decimal logarithm of the gross national income per capita in 2021 to the power of 5/6 and 7/6 (1/6 below and above our baseline value of 1), it would be 63.6% and 64.5% of our bar, respectively.
• The Varieties of Democracy’s electoral democracy index in 2023 to the power of 5/6 and 7/6 (1/6 below and above our baseline value of 1), it would be 62.4% and 65.8% of our bar, respectively.

We believe both of the relationships between egg production and cost-effectiveness tested above are reasonable. So we are very uncertain about whether a new organization working with producers or retailers without pressure campaigns would meet our cost-effectiveness bar.

7 Implementation

7.1 What does working on this idea look like?

Positive corporate engagement (good cop approach)

Wherever possible, working cooperatively with companies to adopt egg replacement solutions. Similarly to work getting cage-free commitments (Bollard, 2017), this good cop strategy would involve:

• Relationship building. Building relationships with the key decision makers at large producers or retailers, and identifying supporters of reform within each company.
• Leveraging past progress. Mentioning companies which have decreased allergens (ideally, eggs) in their products, and referencing allergy conscious brands.
• Investor relations. Filling “laudatory” shareholder proposals thanking major companies for helping people with allergies by removing eggs from some of their products. Animal welfare organizations can also thank investors for their actions decreasing animal suffering, and climate ones thanks them for decreasing greenhouse gas emissions.
• Technical support. Informing companies about egg replacement solutions.
• Industry periodical advertising. Doing targeted advertising to compliment new corporate policies, both to affirm companies’ decisions and signal the trend to peers.
• Sector by sector focus. Building up competitive pressure within each industry for companies to follow their peers. Possible sectors include foodservice, fast food, food manufacturers, and retailers.

Targeted corporate campaigns (bad cop approach)

Where companies refuse to adopt egg replacement solutions, or meet with advocates at all, launching public-facing pressure campaigns to push the issue. Similarly to cage-free campaigns (Bollard, 2017), this bad cop strategy would involve:

• Focusing on a single issue. Coordinating with collaborators to focus on a single issue, such as asking for the removal of all processed eggs. That both builds stronger campaigns and creates a clearer and more reasonable ask for companies, which would not be confronted with multiple different requests.
• Establishing expectations. Trying to meet with the company before each campaign to outline it is imminent. In many cases, companies have committed to cage-free policies after seeing the plans of the respective campaigns.
• Social media. Mobilizing supporters to sign change.org petitions, and commenting on companies’ social media accounts urging them to improve their practices.
• Online video. Creating online videos to alert companies’ consumers to the suffering of people allergic to eggs, especially kids.
• Grassroots activism. Organizing street protests outside of stores and restaurants, and at foodservice companies’ campus accounts. Mobilizing supporters to call and email the company to express their support for egg replacement solutions.
• Targeted advertising. Taking out outdoor ads around company headquarters, using targeted online ads, and sometimes full-page newspaper and even TV ads to put pressure on particularly stubborn companies.
• Celebrities. In particularly tough campaigns, calling on celebrities, whose letters calling for cage-free reforms generated significant news coverage.
• Investor relations. Collaborating with TAB to buy stock in target companies, filing shareholder resolutions, and securing the support of institutional investors for reforms.

7.2 Key factors

This section summarizes our concerns (or lack thereof) about different aspects of putting this idea into practice via starting a new organization without pressure campaigns, or launching a new project with pressure campaigns within an existing organization.

Talent

As Nick described, there are 3 key skills for advocating for egg replacement solutions. Good sales/outreach capabilities, knowledge about food engineering and science in the context of mid to large companies, and ability to run public pressure campaigns well. We think there are many people with the 1st, so the 2nd and 3rd are the ones defining our level of concern, as illustrated below.

Access to information

Work with retailers (low concern)

There is ample information about suppliers of egg replacement solutions. Lever Foundation’s directory lists 53 producers across 18 products, and their relevant contacts (Lever Foundation, 2024). We did not find information about the retailers dealing with the most processed eggs, but we believe the retailers with the largest revenue in the most promising countries are good targets.

Work with producers (moderate concern)

We did not easily find information about the producers dealing with the most processed eggs, or with the products responsible for the most processed eggs.^[17] Claude guessed these to be Hellmann's / Best Foods’ mayo, Kellogg's Eggo waffles and pancakes, and instant noodles using egg powder from some brands. We guess the suppliers of egg replacement solutions have a good sense of where there is greater opportunity to replace processed eggs, including where their replacement solutions are most appropriate.

Access to relevant stakeholders

Work with retailers (low concern)

The implementer can contact the Lever Foundation, which has been reaching out to both producers and retailers since the 2nd quarter of 2024. In addition, the implementers can contact organizations that have worked on corporate campaigns involving retailers.

Work with producers (moderate concern)

The implementer can also contact the Lever Foundation. In addition, only 20 of the 53 suppliers in Lever Foundation’s directory (Lever Foundation, 2024) exclusively have plant-based products, so the implementers can contact the other 33 in an attempt to further decrease the processed eggs in their products, although these are most likely already aware of the case for replacing processed eggs.

Feedback loops (low concern)

Retailers and producers committing to decreasing processed eggs and increasing plant-based ingredients in their products, following the work of the new organization, would be a clear early sign of success. In addition, it would be possible to check later on whether the commitments were fulfilled.

Funding

New organization without pressure campaigns (moderate concern)

We worry funders interested in increasing the consumption of plant-based foods may require that the final products are fully plant-based, as are those of Vegan-Friendly’s egg replacement program. Funders of cost-effective animal welfare interventions are mostly focused on improving conditions, not decreasing the consumption of animal-based products. We are not confident funders enthusiastic about decreasing greenhouse gas emissions will be interested, though this could present an interesting opportunity for more “counterfactually clean” funding.

New project with pressure campaigns within an existing organization (moderate concern)

We think it would be better for the organization to be supported by funders aiming to help people with allergies, as we propose allergy-motivated campaigns as the bad cop strategy. However, it is unclear to us whether they would fund such campaigns against companies, as it would be an unusual approach.

A new organization may also be able to attract funding from funders interested in increasing the consumption of plant-based foods, improving animal welfare, and perhaps even decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. However, we worry these sources of funding may undermine the legitimacy of allergy-motivated campaigns.

Scale of the problem (low concern)

Processed eggs are linked to a large amount of suffering.

Neglectedness (low concern)

We estimate the egg replacement program from Vegan-Friendly had a cost in 2023 and 2024 of $120 k, and Nick mentioned that of the Lever Foundation will soon have 1 FTE. We are not aware of any other organizations working solely on our proposed idea, and the 2 just mentioned do not run pressure campaigns, so the idea is very neglected.

Of the 53 suppliers listed in Lever Foundation’s directory (Lever Foundation, 2024), only 20 offer fully plant-based products. These suppliers have an economic incentive to promote their products, and so do the companies providing plant-based ingredients to the suppliers. Nevertheless, producers of eggs from cage-free hens also have an incentive to market their products, and cage-free campaigns are still highly cost-effective. As Nick pointed out, nonprofits can much more easily leverage public pressure.

Execution difficulty / Tractability (high concern)

We expect it will be very difficult to persuade companies to replace processed eggs.

Risk of harm (moderate concern)

Hens’ lives can become positive over the next few decades in some animal-friendly countries (Grilo, 2024a). In this case, supposing they do not become negative again later on, the replacement of processed eggs would be harmful if it was modeled as a permanent decrease in egg consumption, because then it would eventually cause fewer hens with positive lives to exist for a sufficiently long time. How likely and bad this is will depend on your moral viewpoints.

Nonetheless, we consider the replacement of processed eggs to be better modeled as a speed-up of an inevitable decrease in egg consumption. As a result, for a speed-up of N years, the number of hens is lower than it would have been without the speed-up for N years, and then it is the same as it would have been without the speed-up, as the number of hens would have decreased after N years anyway. For that speed-up to be beneficial, the mean welfare per hen life over the next N years has to be negative.^[18] We believe the speed-ups will be of less than 10 years, and guess the mean welfare per hen life over this timeframe is negative, but with low confidence. Consequently, decreasing the number of hens with positive lives is a moderate concern.

It is also worth noting that hens in cage-free aviaries, although a minority (Welfare Footprint Project, 2022), may well already have positive lives now according to AIM’s pain intensities. Updating Grilo (2024b) with these (feel free to ask Vicky Cox for the respective sheet), hens in cage-free aviaries have a welfare per living time of 0.167, where 1 would correspond to a practically maximally happy life.

8 Conclusion

We recommend against starting a new organization explicitly advocating for companies to adopt egg replacement solutions. The Lever Foundation is working in our most promising country, and it is unclear to us whether a new organization doing similar work would meet our cost-effectiveness bar, so we believe it is better to wait until they have results about their cost-effectiveness before considering starting a new organization.

Meanwhile, we believe it would be good to experiment with running allergy-motivated public-facing campaigns against companies to pressure them into removing processed eggs from their products. We are not aware of this having been tried, and think it may significantly boost the successes of organizations like Vegan-Friendly and the Lever Foundation. However, such campaigns had better be conducted by an existing organization helping people with allergies instead of a new one working on animal welfare, such that the asks are not perceived as insincere.

1. ^{^}

    We ordered the names alphabetically in each sentence.

2. ^{^}

    To read more about our approach to selecting intervention ideas for our program, please contact Morgan.

3. ^{^}

    Angel cakes, general bakery applications, batters, breads and brioches, cakes, cocktails and sours, cookies, egg whites, energy bars, glazes, full egg replacements, mayonnaises, meringues, muffins, pancakes, plant-based meats, pound cakes, and sauces and dressings.

^{^}

 3.93 k pounds per year times 0.454 pounds per kg, divided by 0.0652 kg per egg.

^{^}

 Beginning of the school year.

^{^}

 The welfare per time of the practically maximally happy life is much lower than that of the maximally happy instant.

^{^}

 However, we think the speed-up of their egg replacement was among the smallest, so the project may well not be among the ones counterfactually replacing the most eggs.

^{^}

 Allergies to dairy are the most common in the US.

^{^}

 Kids are more frequently allergic to eggs than adults.

^{^}

 Anonymous 2 suggested “Families for kids with allergies”. However, we note this would be similar to a former organization, Kids with Food Allergies (KFA), which is now part of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA).

^{^}

 One egg is 0.0652 kg. The shell accounts for 9.86% (= (0.1026 + 0.1024 + 0.0975 + 0.0925 + 0.0981)/5) of the mass, and the dry mass excluding the shell is “24 %” of wet mass besides the shell. So each egg has a dry mass excluding the shell of 0.0141 kg (= 0.0652*(1 - 0.0986)*0.24). As a result, 100 to 500 t of such mass correspond to 7.09 M (= 100*10^3/0.0141) to 35.5 M eggs (= 500*10^3/0.0141).

^{^}

 With ones caring about environmental, social, and governance (ESG) being more likely to do so.

^{^}

 Eggs replaced refers to the product between the processed eggs affected per year and acceleration of their replacement in years.

^{^}

 They are also working with retailers.

^{^}

 We did not play with the model until getting to a cost-effectiveness very close to our bar.

^{^}

 Claude guesses to be the product respecting the most processed eggs.

^{^}

 Producers selling a range of different products would arguably consider replacing processed eggs on a product basis.

^{^}

 If the welfare per hen life increases linearly with time (calendar year), a speed-up of N years is beneficial as long as the time until hens have positive lives is longer than N/2 years. If the welfare per hen life increases nonlinearly, there is no simple condition which ensures the speed-up is beneficial. However, assuming welfare per hen life does not decrease, if the welfare per hen life reaches neutrality longer into the future, the speed-up is more likely to be beneficial.

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