The 'FitChix' campaign takes the humble egg, a product that hasn’t changed since it was, well, first laid, and innovates it into a media first.

With the overwhelming majority of egg brands claiming to be ‘Free Range’, we needed to find a way to prove how free our chickens are. So we tracked our chickens and printed their step counts onto our eggs.

These eggs are delivered nationwide every week. And with our chickens laying over 40,000 eggs a day, that’s a lot of free media.

The egg industry is one of the most misleading food industries in the world. On the supermarket shelf you’ll see Free Range, Open Range, Cage Free, Barn Laid, and Free Run eggs - the list goes on. Despite all these wholesome sounding names, a ‘Free Range’ egg farm can have up to 10,000 chickens per hectare.

At Honest Eggs Co. we only have 30 chickens per hectare. Our method of regenerative farming is less wasteful, reduces stress on the land, and is better for the chickens. We just needed more people to know about it.

Our insight came when we assessed our core product and wondered ‘What if we could create a better egg that showed people the conditions it was farmed in?’

Our key objective was to bring honesty to a deceptive industry by raising awareness and acquiring new stockists to take vital shelf space from industry behemoths.

As a sustainable player in the egg industry, we needed to educate consumers on how eggs are farmed and the difference their purchase decisions can make.

So we innovated the humble egg into a media first to put an important message directly into the hands of consumers. To do this, we designed ‘FitChix’ - the world’s first step counter made for a chicken. Each week the device is put on a small number of chickens to track their movements and to give customers an accurate understanding of how free our chickens are compared to other “Free Range” chickens.

For regulatory traceability, every egg on Australian shelves has a printed farm code. To deliver our message we switched this code with the step counts of our chickens during the printing process.

Now every time customers shop for eggs they can see how free our chickens are and make an educated purchase.

‘Free Range’ is the most popular egg category in Australia, making up 47% of total retail sales. Everyday consumers buy ‘Free Range’ eggs because they believe this to be the ethical choice. But as we know, ‘Free Range’ egg farms can have up to 10,000 chickens per hectare. Someone needed to step up and change the industry. And who better to do that than Honest Eggs Co.

At Honest Eggs Co., we’re committed to 100% transparency in everything we do. So that became our strategy.

To engage the sensibilities of ‘Free Range’ egg buyers, all we needed to do was be honest and show consumers how free and healthy our chickens are.

The 'FitChix' campaign was seamlessly integrated into the existing production and distribution processes of Honest Eggs Co. This meant that all media channels were directly in support of the physical product sold on supermarket shelves.

After recording unique step counts on Honest Eggs Co. farms we then began the process of printing the first runs of the now famous ‘eggs with steps’. The distribution of these eggs in bespoke campaign packaging took place on March 9th, 2023 to coincide with the campaign launch.

These innovative eggs were delivered to 350+ stores across Australia and the 'steps' now remain a permanent feature on every egg sold by Honest Eggs Co.

To drive traffic to stores, we ran a small scale targeted integrated campaign across social and OOH in proximity to key retail stores. An earned media strategy saw our farmer booked for 7 x national broadcast interviews.

The 'FitChix' campaign has completely reframed how people think about eggs. We’ve empowered consumers to make more sustainable egg purchases, greatly increased our presence in stores and propelled the business forward.

Within the first two months of the campaign going live, we saw a +493% increase in online conversation. And 38 million earned PR reach - connecting with over 148% of the Australian population.

In the first three weeks, purchase orders from existing stockists increased 40% which maxed-out our available supply. While sales revenue hit the limit and increased 25%.

We also got solid engagement from retailers with +222% new stockist applications.

Furthermore, one of the two largest supermarkets in Australia reached out to discuss how Honest Eggs Co. can spearhead their sustainable & regenerative range.

To continue to spread awareness, we’re going to keep doing what we do best. Sell honest eggs.

The ‘FitChix’ campaign had the unique challenge of working directly against the public perception of ‘Free Range’ eggs. As evidenced by the following research, consumers have a positive perception of ‘Free Range’ eggs when compared to cage eggs.

“Qualitative analysis of focus groups and interviews involving 73 participants revealed that free-range and cage-free eggs are perceived as being better quality, more nutritious, and safer, and having better sensory characteristics, than caged eggs.“

Article by Heather J. Bray & Rachel A. Ankeny - Published 16 May 2017.

This lesser of two evils situation has allowed the Australian Free Range egg industry to remain stagnate and capitalise on the status quo.

Until 'FitChix' came along…