Cage-Free vs Caged Eggs: What Hens Go Through | Jayasimha Nuggehalli, Global Food Partners

India's animal welfare laws look world-class on paper, yet a Bangalore court once tried to auction a rescued bear as "perishable goods." Jayasimha Nuggehalli, co-founder & COO of Global Food Partners, explains why he stopped betting on laws alone and started building a market for cage-free eggs.  Jayasimha Nuggehalli has spent 26 years fighting for animals, first as a PETA undercover investigator inside slaughterhouses and factory farms, then drafting animal law and leading Humane Society International in India. Seven years ago he co-founded Global Food Partners, which helps food companies keep their cage-free egg promises and trains medium and large egg farmers across China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand to move hens out of battery cages. In Indonesia alone, over 100 farms are now transitioning.

In this conversation with host Akshay Datt, he makes a contrarian case: awareness campaigns rarely change what people buy, animal welfare only survives when it pays, and philanthropy deserves the same tolerance for failure we give startups. With global food brands struggling to meet their cage-free pledges, his effective altruism lens on building an animal welfare business has never been more relevant.

👉Why a Bangalore court treated a rescued dancing bear as perishable goods, and how that day pushed Jayasimha into law.

👉What a failed humane slaughter pilot between Pollachi and Coimbatore taught him: if animal welfare is not economically viable, it never lasts.

👉How food companies decide to go cage-free, using his cost-of-welfare versus cost-of-ignoring formula and a 20 to 30% jump in egg costs.

👉Why Save the Tiger is one of the least effective causes for an impact career, and how scale, neglectedness and tractability help you pick a better one.

👉How India's focus on quantity of life over quality of life leaves dairy cows tethered in tabelas and hens confined in cages.

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00:00 - The lawyer who chose animals over Infosys

05:56 - A dancing bear sparks animal law

09:32 - India's animal welfare paradox

14:34 - Why India has so many stray dogs