SEPRA Market Report - 31st July 2015

The market, we said last week that we thought the move would be up, well prices are moving and fast, starting with Colony which are fairly tight in supply and are starting to pull up Free Range as well, there is still a bit of Free Range available in England but there are signs that the market is coming into balance.
In Scotland the Edinburgh and Glasgow fairs are now over, and the Edinburgh festival starts this weekend for the next 5 weeks and already we are hearing reports of increasing demand for our good value eggs, July was a bit shaky market wise but held on well despite the AI scare and we have now been told that DEFRA have started easing restrictions which is a good sign that they have suppressed the outbreak.
There is a new outbreak of AI in Germany and like the one in Lancashire which started in the Free Range but DEFRA cleared the site before it could be confirmed in the Colony system.
The outbreak in Germany and Lancashire appear to have no logical source, previous outbreaks have been linked to wild bird migration and we note that the US is now monitoring wild birds as a source, it is probably being done in the EU as well but we can’t find any official information on this.
We suspect that our industry’s Achilles heel for AI will be the handful of hens running about the farmyard which is becoming more popular and if a few die or are taken by predators no-one will be all that bothered, whereas commercially operated laying units are constantly updating their Bio-Security and flock health.