I am surprised and thrilled that the French, Greek and Italian ministers were won over. It is a landmark, because this is something Compassion in World Farming was set up to achieve in 1967."The delay of more than 12 years has been built into the plan to reduce costs to farmers who will be expected to implement the measures when existing facilities need replacing. The average life of a battery unit is 10 years.The deal was an improvement for farmers on one compromise, which suggested 2107 as the target starting date.Campaigners had to overcome opposition from France, Italy, Greece and Spain. After a lobbying campaign only the Spanish abstained yesterday.Europe farms about 250 million hens, of which about 30 million are in Britain.

However, an increasing quantity of egg production is free-range.British consumers have shown a growing taste for non-battery eggs, with Waitrose seeing a 65 per cent increase in sales and Marks & Spencer deciding to sell only free-range eggs. However, the catering and food-processing trade still uses large quantities of battery produce.. SOFT-DRINK cans contaminated with chemicals that made more than 100 Belgians sick could be on sale in Britain, Coca-Cola admitted. But the company said that they would only be on sale at small independent retailers that had circumvented its official sales channels and imported them from the Continent.

Yesterday's disclosure followed a day in which the world's biggest soft-drinks company fought a public relations battle to calm fears while millions of drinks - including such brands as Fanta, Minute Maid, Sprite and Lilt - were taken off supermarket shelves in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Last night, the company's problems were compounded when the French government banned the sale of cans of Coca-Cola, Diet Coca-Cola and other brands. Marylise Lebranchu, Secretary of State at the Finance Ministry, said that the government had acted because it was not satisfied by Coca-Cola's explanations. Two French people who bought Coca-Cola products at a supermarket near the Belgian border were among those who have fallen ill, the French Health Ministry said yesterday.Late yesterday, Philippe Lenfant, director-general of the company's Belgian arm, offered the suggestion that a bottling plant in Antwerp had used the "wrong" carbon dioxide to add fizz to some of the soft-drink bottles.In France, a drinks industry official suggested that fungicide on pallets used to transport the cans from Dunkirk to Belgium had caused some of the cases. Tests continued last night."I think it's scandalous." said a pregnant Belgian, who had stomach cramps and contractions for four days after drinking Coca-Cola from a can that had rust-like patches and smelt bad.The action followed the second poisoning incident in a week. On Monday, 40 children from a school in Ghent and a further eight children and adults in another town in Flanders were taken to hospital after complaining of vomiting, headaches and stomach cramps. Last week, 35 children in Antwerp fell ill.In Britain, the company insisted that it would not withdraw its products from sale, and that it had no way of finding out who might have imported contaminated cans from the Continent."We believe the numbers would be negligible, but we have no idea how many there would be," said a spokesman for Coca-Cola Great Britain. We are not allowed, under European law, to ask where vendors have bought cans from," he added.The Belgian Health Ministry said that a toxicology centre had found cases of haemolysis, a blood disorder that causes the destruction of red corpuscles, among two consumers of Coca-Cola who had fallen ill.

Before last night's surprise statement by the company, a spokeswoman for the Belgian government said that there had been "no explanation whatsoever on behalf of the Coca- Cola company".Belgium's new Health Minister, Luc Van den Bossche, told consumers not to panic, but criticised Coca-Cola's lack of co-operation in handling the scare. "It's a bit disturbing that a big firm with worldwide fame... did not take far-reaching measures more spontaneously and more promptly," he said on television.However, the company itself pointed out that its customers had complained of an unpleasant smell on the product's packaging, and said it had not yet ruled out sabotage.The scare followed Belgium's dioxin food safety scandal, renewing disruption in supermarkets, where Coca-Cola products were taken off shelves. Brussels shoppers seemed confused by the latest incident: some shunned products from Coca-Cola's rivals, such as Pepsi, although they have not been implicated in the crisis.Food Scare ScandalsHEINZ BABY FOOD:In 1989 Heinz had to withdraw baby food worth an estimated pounds 30m when Rodney Whitchelo, a former Scotland Yard detective, attempted to extort millions of pounds from the food giant by spiking the food with bleach and razor blades. He was later sentenced to 17 years in jail.PERRIER WATER:Sales of Perrier water were hit in 1990 when traces of carcinogenic benzene were found in bottles in the United States. The company belatedly withdrew 160 million bottles worldwide at a cost of pounds 150m. Sales of a billion bottles a year fell to 700 million by 1994.LUCOZADE:Millions of bottles of Lucozade were withdrawn from shops in 1991 after police uncovered a contamination attempt by animal rights activists.

It cost Smith-Kline Beecham, the drink's manufacturer, an estimated pounds 1m. Two years later 12 million bottles of the drink were taken off shelves because of concern that the necks could break when they were opened.FIZZY DRINKS:In June last year millions of bottles and cans of Pepsi, Tango, 7-Up and other fizzy drinks were removed from the shelves after fears that the carbon dioxide content had been contaminated by benzene at a plant in the West Country.. A STORM has broken out over an advertisement for Scotland's unofficial national drink, Irn-Bru, which shows a woman nibbling at a pair of Y-fronts. Women's groups say the television advert, the latest in a bizarre series from the fizzy-drink company, is demeaning. It follows another campaign showing an English country gentleman beside his two labradors saying: "I love my Irn-Bru and so do my bitches." Despite complaints about the poster, the Advertising Standards Authority backed Irn-Bru, accepting the argument that the poster was based on the absurdity of such a man using black American slang. The latest film shows a woman being hypnotised by a psychotherapist. He steals her Irn-Bru and, after drinking it, tells her: "Oh, but you are still a goat." In the last scene, she is seen acting like a goat, nibbling the underpants on a washing line. Gerry Farrell, creative director at Leith Agency, which designed the campaign, said: "This has nothing to with gender.