A petition demanding compulsory labels identifying eggs that have been laid by battery or caged hens is due to be handed to the government.
New Zealanders eat around 220 eggs each a year and animal welfare groups say consumers should be able to pick their eggs based on whether they believe they are produced humanely.
Currently, activists say it is almost impossible for consumers to determine how eggs have been produced.
A key difference in production types is space. By law battery hens must be provided with cage space slightly bigger than the size of each hen. For hens kept in barns, the rules are no more than seven birds a square metre.
Free range hens are kept outdoors and there is no mandatory minimum, but the suggestion is for every 11 square metres there is just one hen.
Animal welfare group SAFE believes customers should have enough information on egg packaging to bypass eggs produced in batteries, the most cramped conditions for hens and arguably the most inhumane.
They say that battery brands marketed with wholesome names and images are misleading.
But the Egg Producers' Federation says that shoppers can identify battery eggs by what is not on the label (e.g. free range approval) and the cheaper price.
However after some debate, the federation says they have agreed to adopt a voluntary system.
"They will put caged eggs on the packaging just as it is in Australia where the requirement is to say cage eggs, barn eggs, free range eggs," says federation spokesperson Michael Brooks.
It hopes the new voluntary labels will be on egg packets in six months.
But SAFE says a goodwill system is not good enough and will present their petition of 50,000 signatures to the government this week.
