Sustained growth in retail egg sales has seen consumers buying more than half a billion additional eggs over the past three years - a rise of more than 10%. Retail sales value has risen by almost £100m since 2010 and 2013 sales equated to around £900m.
Egg sales volume declined consistently from the 1960s, until the launch of the British Lion 15 years ago arrested the fall. However, it is in the last three years that retail growth rates have really accelerated, and this has seen overall consumption return to levels last seen before the salmonella in eggs crisis of the late 1980s.
Figures just released for 2013 show that the market is continuing to grow, with retail volume sales up around 3.5% year-on-year, the equivalent of more than 170m eggs.
Andrew Joret, Chairman of the British Egg Industry Council, said: “We’ve had some fantastic success in recent years – we’ve beaten salmonella, unscrambled cholesterol and cracked sales growth.
“We have a fantastic product that consumers love and with our new Meals in Minutes campaign, featuring the celebrity chef Dean Edwards, set to inspire consumers to include eggs more frequently within meals, we anticipate another year of impressive sales growth.”
