Greater supply is needed for processed foods and commercial baking
Commercial bakers and producers of processed food in the U.S. will soon be able to buy egg products from the Netherlands, a move that will mark the first European egg imports in more than a decade and aim to reverse the domestic shortage in the wake of a large bird flu outbreak.
Five Dutch producers will start sell egg products to American producers within days, the Associated Press reported Monday, citing a spokesman for the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). Some 47 million birds have been killed or are dying as a result of the H5N2 virus, with 35 million egg-laying hens among them that accounted for 80% of the eggs that are processed by being broken and liquefied, frozen or dried for commercial use.
While the U.S. typically produces enough eggs to export tens of millions of them a month, the shortage has sent prices for egg products used by bakeries and manufacturers soaring by 200% in just the past few weeks. Commodity market research firm Urner Barry reports American consumers have seen their cartons of whole eggs grow 120% more expensive in the last month. The rising cost has led some shoppers to choose organic or cage-free options, an analyst at the the firm notes, as those prices haven’t jumped since those hens haven’t been as hard-hit by bird flu.
Canada is usually the only nation from which the U.S. imports the kind of egg products used in these commercial industries. In a statement last week, the FSIS said The Netherlands’s food safety system “continues to be equivalent” to the U.S. system.
[AP]