Perhaps more than any other aisle of the supermarket, the egg section offers a range of options where cost—and assumed quality—is immediately legible from the package. Styrofoam cartons tend to offer conventional eggs. Plastic containers are for cage-free options. Pulp can indicate anything from store brand to farm stand.
Unlike, say, a pack of strawberries, whose color acts as an indicator of freshness, or a pint of yogurt whose ingredient list is a shorthand for quality, there’s no easy way to know the difference between one egg or another without cracking it open. Value needs to be indicated by the packaging.
As more egg brands have started to appear on shelves, they’ve gotten increasingly creative in their efforts to catch a casual shopper’s eye. Premium eggs brands, long dogged by confusing terminology (what’s the difference between cage-free and free-range?), have started to favor design rather than language as a means of indicating quality.In the past few years, competitors have emerged that also aim to stand out in a crowded, but drab, shelf. Handsome Brook Farms uses bright, nature-inspired color and illustrations to allude to their high standards. (They worked with Red Scout on the rebrand that hit stores in the summer of 2020.) Meanwhile, the rich gilt-on-cerulean cartons from recently-launched (and Tik Tok viral) brand Consider Pastures were designed by Pearlfisher.
Priorities shifted in terms of messaging, too. “Instead of bombarding people with certifications,” the brand decided to keep the USDA Organic label on the front, but move American Humane Certified, an animal welfare rating, to the back. Inside the lid, there’s a graphic that compares the relative qualities of other egg feed (conventional, non-GMO, organic) and roam (cage-free, free-range, pasture-raised) options.
This shift from a more didactic design to a spare, evocative one is possible, in part, because Vital Farms’ packaging helped establish pasture-raised eggs as a uniquely valuable offering. “We were very fortunate that at that time we had a degree of exclusivity with the carton’s form factor—what’s known as a hybrid cotton,” says Brooks, “which naturally creates a far more aesthetically pleasing canvas on which to work.” Today, Handsome Farms uses the same materials. Consider Pastures, an offshoot of Pete and Gerry’s (which also owns Nellie’s Free Range), takes a different approach with a segmented, patent-pending paper carton that draws on egg carton design from the early 20th century, before pulp became the norm.The opulent, limited-text look of a brand like Consider Pastures shows that today, packaging design is a more effective indicator of premium status than USDA terminology. At nearly $10 a dozen, pasture-raised eggs need to appeal to more than a consumer’s sense of animal welfare. They need to do something for their sense of self as well. “From their stunning amber yolks to their caring ethos,” reads the project description from Pearlfisher, “Consider Pastures makes the right choice much easier to make.” Unlike many premium products, pasture-raised eggs can play it both ways—they can frame themselves as a moral good, packaged like a treat.
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