Egg stampers put through their paces
Taken from the Ranger magazine www.theranger.co.uk
As the egg industry considers whether to go down the route of on-farm marking of eggs, stamping equipment is now being trialled on free range farms.
As revealed in last month's Ranger, despite the UK egg industry four years ago roundly rejecting an EU proposal which would have led to all eggs being marked before they left the farm, on-farm stamping is now being considered as one of a series of steps aimed at preventing fraud.
But it is clear from early discussions that there are massive concerns over the cost implications, particularly for those free range and organic producers operating smaller flock sizes.
The BFREPA council has already met to consider the proposal and representatives from the Association joined egg packers at a meeting of a special working group set up by the British Egg Industry Council.
Tom Vesey, BFREPA chairman, believes that, in time, eggs should be stamped on farm but like all council members is
extremely concerned about the costs and difficulties associated with doing so.
"We need to gather as much information as possible in order to be able to make an informed decision, and it is extremely important that the extra expense is fully
justified, not only by the prevention—as far as this is possible—of the type of fraudulent activity that was exposed last year, but also by a real benefit when it comes to the marketing of eggs."
There is also concern about the trade in eggs for processing which involves unmarked eggs moving between member states without any contravention of egg
marketing rules.
"If we do opt for on-farm stamping of eggs it must go hand-in-hand with a tightening of procedures which currently allow unmarked eggs to move around freely
on the basis that they are destined for processing," says Tom. "This offers a huge loophole when it comes to preventing fraud."
As well as helping to eliminate fraud, stamping eggs on the farm is seen by some as essential if the Lion scheme is to maintain its marketing edge.
One packer attending the BEIC stamping meeting said: "The risk is the Lion will get left behind if it doesn't implement on-farm stamping. Free range eggs are already being imported from the Continent where they
have been stamped on the farm and the retailers selling these eggs view this enhanced level of traceability as a plus."
Michael Kent, chief executive of Britain's biggest egg marketing company, Noble Foods, said he supported the principle of onfarm stamping and told the Ranger: "We
support anything that delivers greater integrity for the UK egg industry and we were pleased to see the establishment of the BEIC working group to look into the feasibility of on-farm stamping.
"Cleary cost is a major issue and an important role for the group will be to consider not just how stamping can be carried out at farm level but precisely what
costs are involved."
The working group aims to meet again next month by which time information on costs will be available, based on trials currently being carried out on commercial farms.
The equipment being tested ranges from simple hand-operated stampers capable of marking 30 eggs at a time through to automatic machines fed by conveyors.
