The Student Culinary Council (SCC) assembled Thursday evening to discuss switching from battery-cage to cage-free eggs at Binghamton University dining facilities.

Although a decision was expected, the SCC decided to delay any change after receiving inconclusive feedback from the residential dining communities.

Currently, the price of eggs in residence dining halls is 20 cents per serving, whereas cage-free eggs would be 44 cents.

In Hinman College, a committee of around 100 students unanimously agreed to the implementation of cage-free eggs. The College-in-the-Woods’ area-wide Council Committee was also in full support of cage-free eggs. In the Dickinson Community, however, a student committee was evenly split on whether the higher price of cage-free eggs would be worth the ethical benefits. Off-campus students also questioned the true ethical impact of cage-free eggs over battery-cage, and voted against the change.

The SCC and residential committees agreed to further discuss the shift from battery-free to cage-free, and also introduced the idea of free-range organic eggs.

“We’ve gotten consensus from people, clearly we need to find other options on the table and explore those to come to a decision,” said Mitchell LaRosa, president of the SCC and a sophomore majoring in history. “We are open to either option. We have discussed the cage-free proposal, but we felt people did want more than that.”

Jim Ruoff, general manager of Sodexo Campus Services at Binghamton, said Sodexo will gather information on availabilities and costs for all different egg options, and will be continue to be involved until the decision is made.

“What the Student Culinary Council asked me to do this evening, what we will do for the next meeting, is get cost differentiators on cage-free, what we use now, free-range and organic eggs,” Ruoff said.

Ruoff also added that Sodexo policy dictates that by 2020, they will switch from all battery-cage to cage-free liquid eggs.

The SCC plans to continue discussions with campus diners, and meet again next Monday to get closer to a final decision.

“And we look to serve in the best interest of all stakeholders involved, foremost the students,” LaRosa said. “This is something we’re still working on; we’d rather have everyone be very well informed and have all of our options played out for us before we jump into anything.”