March 24, 2005                 

New US egg safety and quality centre to be set up

A new egg safety centre is being set up in the US with hopes of developing improved technologies for egg production and processing that will reduce or eliminate microorganisms that can transmit disease to humans or cause spoilage. This will translate into higher public confidence and decrease the number of health scares.

A new egg safety centre in the US could help ensure that health scares associated with eggs and low public confidence are far less common in the future.

This Egg Safety and Quality Research Unit is crucial in cases like trying the stem outbreaks of salmonellosis, which has increased in incidence over the past 25 years. An outbreak can cost manufacturers millions in terms of product recalls as seen in the UK, where the local egg industry is still recovering from wide outbreaks that were reported in the 1980s.

The centre's key focus is studying how microbial pathogens infect poultry and cause egg contamination, and what can be done to reduce such contamination in the egg processing practices.

Eggs are a vital ingredient in many sectors of food production. In 2003, an estimated 87.2 billion eggs were produced in the United States alone, with about 85 percent of them destined for human consumption, according to figures from USDA's Economic Research Service.

Per capita consumption of eggs and egg products in 2003 was the equivalent of 254 eggs, an increase of 19 eggs per person from 1990, ERS estimated.

The trade up to higher-priced eggs - free range and organic - suggests overall health concerns are driving the market. In 2003 free-range eggs accounted for 30 percent of egg sales by volume compared to just 24 percent in 1998, representing a 38 percent rise in sales since 1998.