An excerpt is now published in Salad Days Magazine
How do you like your eggs in the morning? Poached, scrambled, fried, in pancake form; the list is endless. Since pagan times, eggs have been synonymous with Spring. An important season for food production, animals are also coming out of their winter dormancy and are beginning to nest and mate. Eggs represent new life and the regenerative power of nature. Traditionally, eggs were prohibited during Lent alongside other animal products as a fasting penance. Today they remain pivotal to the Easter narrative with egg hunts conducted by children (and adults!) around the globe.
We don't often spend the time thinking about how our food gets into our shopping baskets, aside from perhaps a cursory glance at whether a product might be healthy and marginally ethically produced. With Easter fast approaching, chocolate eggs are everywhere, but what about the boxes of eggs we consume and purchase every day? In Britain, 13 billion eggs are eaten every year and during the Covid 19 pandemic, demand soured to new heights.
In December 2020 a highly pathogenic form of Avian Influenza was detected in the UK. All bird keepers regardless of size of flock or commercial use were instructed by the government to isolate their birds indoors. This will no doubt have lasting effects on the avian and egg industry, especially considering the already anticipated impact of both Covid and Brexit on British farming. Unable to contact the Easter Bunny due to scheduling issues, I've instead chatted with self-confessed egg fanatic Harriet Smith, a Poultry specialist who was willing to answer my calls.
Chickens are descendants of Dinosaurs, but if we're looking only superficially into the science of this, then the egg came first. Whatever animals came before the chicken, mated and laid a 'chicken egg' which then hatched a chicken.
What effect has the Covid 19 pandemic had on the egg industry so far?
Initially, the global egg market was anticipated to decline by 2.4 billion from 2019 into 2020 as a result of the Covid 19 economic slowdown. However an unanticipated benefit of the first lockdown was the rise in home baking, with eggs becoming an integral commodity. Sales of baking products were up by over two-thirds. Demand for eggs in supermarkets went up by 100% in the first lockdown and remains at 30% above normal volumes. In terms of the wholesale market, the pandemic has been less kind with restaurants closing. Before the pandemic consumers were price conscious and as a general rule of thumb bought large brown eggs. However, during the lockdown, people didn’t care what size or colour egg they bought, they just needed an egg. People are just now beginning to return to their old egg buying habits.
You tend to have a choice between large or medium eggs. Does size matter?
Size does matter in terms of hen welfare. Egg size increases over time as a hen gets older; naturally a hen will lay a small egg first and their egg production will gradually increase in size over time. Egg sizing can be affected by many variables, including weather, diet, and lighting. However, as more consumers buy large eggs over medium or mixed weight boxes, this pushes demand for large eggs. To produce more of these larger eggs, some poultry farmers adapt lighting patterns in sheds to make their hens lay larger eggs, which mimics the natural change of the seasons, but this isn't natural. Unfortunately the cost of this is the risk of increased mortality and the amount of eggs these hens can lay, as essentially they can only produce so much egg mass, so the bigger the egg the less of them. This is driven by consumer habits rather than a desire by the farmers, although there is an incentive to provide larger eggs. The only discernible difference between a large and medium egg is the amount of white in the shell. You don't get more for your money, you actually contribute to affecting the welfare of hens. In the case of eggs, smaller is actually better.
White eggs generally aren't sold on UK supermarket shelves but are sold internationally and this is due to consumer perception. White eggs were popular in the UK up until the 1970's when shoppers began to switch to brown eggs. This was mostly down to the misconception that they were more natural or rustic. Unfortunately, this now means there are very few white layers in the UK- around 300,000 hens out of the 40 million UK hen population. Having said this, due to the first Covid 19 lockdown and the drastic surge in demand for eggs by consumers, Tesco has reintroduced white eggs to their shelves. This is a good thing as white eggs are often more efficiently farmed and more cost effective. The hens also lay for longer, eat less and are less aggressive than brown hens. There is no nutritional difference between white, brown or even blue/green eggs.
Amid rising concern over animal welfare in world farming, what are the ethics of eggs?
The majority of farms are lion code or laid in Britain assured and will be audited by the RSPCA. There is a lot of paperwork and hoops farmers have to jump through. Ultimately if bird welfare isn’t up to scratch they won’t perform, so farmers want the best for their hens as anyone. The hens are given a lot of enrichment in sheds, including toys and perching, and have freedom to perform natural behaviours such as dust bathing.
Outsiders seem to have a lot to say about beak tipping. But it is honestly so important for hen welfare. I have seen a few flocks in my time that come under a tiny bit of stress, and start pecking each other. As chickens are naturally carnivorous, there is the potential that they will peck each other to death. Beak tipping massively reduces mortality as its much harder for them to hurt one another. It is also painless and is done on the day of hatch by an infrared ray. Think of it as cutting your nails. Essentially, the procedure ensures the top beak doesn’t overhang the bottom, so both beaks are in line. There is a misconception that the whole beak is removed and that is simply untrue. Some breeds who have full beaks are quite highly strung birds and in a bid to certify high welfare, by not touching the beaks, the opposite affect sometimes occurs.
We are also considering the ethics of feed production in the avian community. Feed for hens must have good protein content and as a result generally include soya, which is largely imported. There has been a lot of research to go into protein alternatives. As an example, the black soldier fly larvae has been proven as a very sustainable and consistent source of protein. They can be grown on farms and fed direct into the feed or just spread in the sheds, decreasing food miles. Unfortunately European rules state that live animals can't be fed to other animals, despite hens eating worms when ranging. Bird welfare is as important to farmers as it is to our customers.
Packed full of amino acids, vitamin D and B12, eggs are an excellent source of natural vitamins whether consumed for breakfast, lunch, dinner or in cake form. Take it from a true eggs-pert.
Want to learn more about eggs? Follow @the_poultry_diaries for egg-citing behind the scenes content
