Dairy Queen Just Made An Important Change To Its Blizzards

Over the past few years, the public pressure for businesses to go green has continued to mount. As a result, fast food restaurants have taken some major steps to lessen their environmental impact. According to Earth 911, chains like Pizza Hut and Taco Bell have started sustainably sourcing their ingredients, while McDonald's recently announced that they plan to stop using foam products entirely by 2025. Dairy Queen now follows in the footsteps of these major changes thanks to a recent announcement that can make you feel much more at ease when you order a Blizzard.

In a statement to Mashed, Dairy Queen announced that as part of their plan to exclusively use eggs sourced from cage-free chicken facilities, all eggs that go into the production of a Blizzard now come from cage-free chickens. This news comes as a major step forward for the brand, which announced this goal in 2016 and intends for every one of their products that includes eggs to use cage-free varieties by 2025.

According to the statement, around 35 percent of Dairy Queen's egg products across the U.S. and Canada currently use cage-free eggs, with their Blizzards exclusively using this variety of egg, representing a major step forward for the brand.

While the chain continues to take some major steps to reduce the harm caused to chickens that provide their eggs, Dairy Queen has been steadily working towards improving its environmental impacts for years. According to Architect Magazine, the fast food chain launched a groundbreaking energy-efficient location back in 2009 that set the pace for other restaurant giants looking to go green. While a regular DQ required $3.50 to power each square foot in 2009, this new model dropped the costs down to $0.30 thanks to new energy-saving insulation techniques, as well as incorporating a heating system that recycled solar energy and leftover energy that it took to power the restaurant (via Architect Magazine).

Dairy Queen announced the beginning of its cage-free commitment seven years after this ecologically-centered flagship restaurant opened (via Business Wire). It appears that Blizzards exclusively using cage-free eggs comes as the first DQ item across the board that has completely made the switch. While some items feature the new eggs, the news of Blizzards completely transitioning to using cage-free eggs indicates that the overall switch to a system with less cruelty remains on track for the 2025 endpoint (via Financial Post). This ingredient switch not only marks an ethical switch for the company, it comes as one of the first major ingredient changes in Dairy Queen's Blizzard base in years.

Dairy Queen built their reputation on the quality of their frozen treats, and thanks to revolutionizing the dessert, they founded a fast food empire that continues to keep going strong. According to Eat This, Not That!, DQ has used the same recipe since the brand started serving their signature frozen desserts. The creators of the company dreamed up one of the very first versions of soft-serve in 1938 and created the restaurant as a means to sell this new culinary invention (via Mental Itch). While the brand gradually introduced new frozen products and food to their soft-serve line, they truly carved their name into the annals of food history by inventing modern soft-serve, a product that has virtually remained unchanged for almost a century. 

The use of cage-free eggs stands as a major development for the brand, as it represents one of the first changes to their signature dessert in quite some time. The frozen treat entered Dairy Queen's menus in 1985, and according to FDA standards, couldn't get marketed as ice cream due to the fact it contains less than 10 percent milkfat (via Taste of Home). The treat's iconic flavors have continued to draw crowds through the decades, and the transition to using cage-free eggs marks a major step forward in the perfection of the Blizzard.

If you love the idea of eating fast food with a greater ethical standing, don't assume you can only get your fix at Dairy Queen. According to World Animal Protection, brands like IKEA and McDonald's have also gone cage-free, making the world a little better. If this change just sounds like hyped-up marketing, knowing how the birds previously lived could make you change your mind. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "cage-free" means that the birds didn't live their lives in battery cages, and while the conditions won't make everyone happy, it represents a major step forward in a move towards more ethical eating practices.

If you can't get enough of Dairy Queen's iconic Blizzard frozen treats, rest easy knowing that the brand has taken a major step forward toward providing a more ethically-friendly way to enjoy their meals. If you don't think the change makes a difference, wait until you try a bite for yourself and see what you think. After all, happier chickens lay better-tasting eggs, reports Serious Eats, and when this translates to better Blizzards, who can argue?