America is looking to the United Kingdom to help fill a shortage of eggs caused by the bird flu crisis across the Atlantic.
More than 46 million chickens and turkeys – more than the number of birds in the whole UK layer flock – have been culled as a result of the trans-American avian influenza outbreak, which has now spread to 21 states. Egg prices have tripled on the United States wholesale market as a result of egg shortages, and the Americans have been turning to Europe to help fill those shortages. The Netherlands has already secured a licence to export eggs to America and American companies have also been approaching sources in the UK for possible egg supplies.
“Through contacts we have had a number of enquiries from Americans looking to source both shell egg and egg product,” said Barry Jackson of Egg UK. A large packing company has also told the Ranger of approaches it has received from American contacts who are desperately seeking to replace the egg production lost as a result of the raging bird flu epidemic.
The eggs are needed not only to satisfy demand in the United States but also to fulfil contracts which American companies have to supply eggs to customers in other countries. “The Americans sell into markets in the Middle East, the Far East, Canada and South America,” said Barry. “One of the enquiries we have had is to replace commitment to another country,” he said.
Andy Crossland of Central Egg Agency also pointed to gaps in egg supplies around the world as a result of the crisis in the United States. “I know of one processor selling some frozen liquid egg to Dubai on behalf of a Canadian processor. There are gaps caused by eggs that would have come from the US,” said Andy, who said he was not yet aware of any egg going directly to America from the UK, although he said one or two British companies were looking at the possibility of doing so.
Some European companies had pushed ahead with gaining the licences necessary to export to the United States – mainly for egg product. Some companies in the UK were now looking at dealing with the red tape necessary to export across the Atlantic, but he said, “At the moment UK egg is going to replace US egg in other markets.”
The British Egg Products Association has warned that this is beginning to have an impact on the availability of eggs for processing within the European Union. BEPA said that the egg products market would normally absorb overproduction in Europe, but this was not currently available.
Elwyn Griffiths, chairman of BEPA, said, “To put this into context, the production that the US has lost is far greater than total UK production. It is a very difficult time for egg farmers in the US, and the knock-on effects are being felt around the world as eggs are diverted to help support the major shortfall in US production.
“We are seeing the start of some significant supply issues within the EU. As re-population will take many months, we believe that it will be some time before we see supply return to normal.”
Gary Ford, chief poultry adviser with the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), said the Dutch egg industry had already sorted export licences and was sending egg to the States. And, echoing the report from BEPA, Gary said that the crisis in America had tightened the market in the United Kingdom.
“Both colony and free range eggs had become increasingly available recently – we had started to move away from the previous tight supply in the market. We had probably started to see a little bit of oversupply in free range and that was gaining a bit of momentum with imported product coming in. We were heading for a potentially challenging situation but the impact of what has happened in the US has changed that,” said Gary.
In a recent business bulletin, the NFU said that colony eggs had “changed from being a problem to clear to becoming a problem to find, with large being the shortest. How far this will go is unknown yet but the USA won’t recover in a number of days or even a few weeks.” It said, “Free range will feel some benefit from this, as they themselves were becoming burdensome on the market and slipping in price but now at least they have a firmer floor beneath them.”
Andy Crossland at Central Egg agreed that the UK egg market had started to look looser since Easter, with free range eggs available for the first time in a long time. “With colony, we had started to see some flocks going a bit quicker.” He said there had been some early depletions as the price of eggs on the wholesale market fell. The state of the market had changed since the AI outbreaks across the Atlantic, he said.
“There is less availability from Europe – it is still coming over but it is more difficult to source and prices have started moving up,” said Andy.
Gary Ford said there had been fears about a possible surplus of US egg with Mexico now recovering from its own AI outbreaks. Eggs had been going from the States to fill gaps in Mexico and Gary said there had been worries about where that American egg would go once it was displaced by the eggs of recovering Mexican producers. The AI outbreaks in America had now wiped out any potential surplus and created shortages in the United States, itself.
Barry Jackson said it could be some time before America was able to recover from the bird flu crisis. He said it would be 18 months at least before the United States could return to normal. It could take much longer if, as had been reported, parent stock had been wiped out. “The numbers of birds involved in the cull is just huge – bigger than the whole of the UK layer flock,” said Barry.
Michigan has become the latest and 21st state of the Union to report a confirmed case of bird flu, although at the moment it has only been found in wild birds. The USA Poultry and Egg Export Council has estimated trade losses at about $600 million in the first quarter of the year as a result of restrictions imposed by importing countries.
