When asked in a recent survey to rank social issues that mattered most to them, restaurant-goers ranked animal welfare as the third most important issue, ahead of even the environment, according to food service consulting company Technomic.

With consumer awareness on the rise, companies have to hatch new policies to show the customers they give a cluck about animal welfare.

And how are they doing it? Some local businesses and even colleges — including Harvard University and Finagle a Bagel — have turned to cage-free eggs for use in their food.

“It’s going to become a condition of doing business,” Technomic executive director Bob Goldin said in the May 2007 issue of Meating Place, a meat and poultry industry magazine.

Humane Society of the United States Factory Farming Campaign Outreach director Josh Balk said the cage-free egg movement is the fastest growing sector in the egg industry and Boston is one of the most active areas in the country for cage-free eggs.

Health-minded and social issues-orientated places like Whole Foods have sold only cage-free eggs since 2005. In January, Newton-based Finagle a Bagel became the nation’s first bagel chain to make the switch.

Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are among the 17 Massachusetts schools that have moved away from using battery cage eggs. Massachusetts and New Hampshire burrito chain Boloco is the most recent convert, announcing its switch on Oct. 16.

So some Boston-area restaurants and schools have made the socially conscious switch to cage-free eggs, but has anyone noticed?

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

In terms of taste, an egg is an egg — there is no difference in eggs from cage-free and those from battery-cage factories. Cage-free eggs come from hens with more room to roam. Battery cages, the industry standard for egg production, keep hens inside a cage smaller than 8 x 11 inches, the size of a piece of printer paper, their entire lives.

“Cage-free eggs cost pennies more per egg, but a hidden cost of battery eggs is animal cruelty,” Balk said. “It’s the hens who are paying the price.”

Balk said businesses make the change usually to satisfy customers’ desire for a more humanely produced product and because of the positive media attention that comes with any socially conscious business practices.

“It’s just good business,” said Chris Allen, 29, while eating at Finagle a Bagel. But the Cambridge resident had not heard of cage-free egg movement nor that Finagle a Bagel has a cage-free egg policy.

“If people think it’s important, and the public is aware [of the issue] … you should just go along with it,” Allen said.

Finagle a Bagel president Laura Trust said the company’s decision to go cage-free was based on the fact that it is a more humane practice, because the eggs have no difference in taste. Using local produce and organic products — another movement onto which businesses are beginning to catch — is more of a quality issue than a socially conscious one, she said.

“The way hens are treated is something frankly I didn’t know anything about,” Trust said. “When we began to understand the issue, we decided to make the switch, primarily because we’re good people.”

NOT JUST LOOKING AT THE BOTTOM LINE

Finagle purchases cage-free eggs from Pete ‘ Gerry’s in Monroe, N.H., one of the larger local providers. The eggs cost about a dollar more per dozen than the company’s previous egg provider, but Trust said it is worth the expense although the majority of customers do not know about the change.

“If they knew I think they’d be pleased — I mean, who wouldn’t be?” she said.

Some stores that use only cage-free eggs, such as Whole Foods, may already be better known for their socially conscious product policies.

“I think the kinds of shoppers we get are seeking that out,” said Whole Foods spokesperson Amy Schaefer, noting the store’s cage-free policy extends all the way to its baked goods. “They know we are doing their homework for them to meet those standards.”

Though Boloco advertises using meats without any steroids, its social conscience might not be the initial draw. Boloco locations on Newbury Street and on the Berklee College and Northeastern University campus may be more of a draw for people on the run than those specifically looking to support restaurants favoring humane treatment.

Boloco customer Jesse Humphrey from Rhode Island said though he had not known about the new cage-free egg policy, he would be more inclined to eat there in the future now that he does.

“It shows that they’re not just trying to make money, which is not always the case with businesses today,” the 20-year-old said.

SOME IS BETTER THAN NONE

Harvard Dining Services Marketing and Communications director Crista Martin said the school switched partially to cage-free eggs as a compromise.

The school now uses cage-free shell eggs, but still uses liquid eggs from its previous provider, which could only afford a partial switch.

“We wanted to provide a choice, and this was a choice we couldn’t meet in any other way,” said Martin.

The cost of using shell cage-free eggs is nearly double the cost of previous eggs of both types, about $20,000-30,000 more each year. The dining plan did not go up and students did not see any of this cost when they made the change last spring, Martin said.

“It’s a duty for us to find efficiency, and that’s why we didn’t do all our eggs. We have a fairly trim budget and we did our best to cut back over the year to find money for the cage-free eggs,” Martin said.

STUDENT AWARENESS (OR LACK THEREOF)

Before the switch, the topic had captured the interest of many Harvard students, and some who formed a group on Facebook.com about the issue became unofficial representatives to dining services for the students.

“There was serious interest in using products locally when possible,” Martin said. “We met desires of those interested in cage-free eggs and those in buying locally.”

Part of the research process at Harvard before the transition involved site visits to farms and egg providers, including farms in Pennsylvania and Maine. The actual transition took about a week. Martin said the school decided also on Pete ‘ Gerry’s, mostly for safety and volume reasons.

Though an active student group helped bring about cage-free egg options at Harvard, the majority of students have not shown much reaction to the switch.

“Those who were interested in the topic were pleased, and those who weren’t probably didn’t notice,” Martin said.

In 2005, a student at American University put into motion the cage-free egg transition at BonAppetit, a restaurant company that provides for MIT, Emmanuel College and Lesley University in the Boston area, as well as 14 other schools across the country.

“It took a few months to get everything in place, but once it’s in place it’s very easy to do. It’s slightly more [expensive] but we look at it as it’s right for environment,” said MIT BonAppetit general manager Marietta Buck.

BonAppetit is one of three food providers to MIT and the only one of those three to have incorporated cage-free eggs in its products. The other two companies on MIT’s campus, Aramark and Sodexho, have yet to make the transition.

“There is the opposition of farmers and companies who say cage-free eggs aren’t different than anything else, but when you look at how the hens are treated, we think that’s what makes the difference,” Buck said.

With the exception of MIT’s small sustainability group and other environmentally aware and animal-rights conscious students, Buck said reaction at MIT has been lukewarm.

“Some schools, it doesn’t bother them — for them it’s just an egg — but there are other schools it really means a lot to,” Buck said. “At MIT, they’re very focused on academics so that’s the first priority, but students say it’s nice.”

DOING THE RIGHT THING

Companies who have made the switch to cage-free eggs usually have other socially responsible and environmentally friendly policies, which include recycling, buying locally and organically and serving fair trade coffee.

“As a company, we look at what we have to do to save the world, in a sense,” Buck said.

At a smaller, locally owned chain like Finagle a Bagel, business practice follows personal philosophy.

“All [that] companies are are people and if a person believes they should do the right thing, then the company policy should follow,” Trust said. “We’re not some big corporation. We’re local people and live in the community — we feel strongly about doing the right thing.”