International Egg Conference Spring Conference - Venice

Delegates at the International Egg Commission Spring conference in Venice at the end of March heard the recurring theme from speaker that ’Trust’ is your most valuable asset. Successful businesses from all sectors, whether they be small or large have to be ’trusted’ by their customers to provide not just a safe, quality product but to have done so in a way that is ethical and sustainable.

Giampaolo Cavallaro from Findus/Birdseye in Italy said that ’price’ was not longer the key factor but that ’improving consumers’ lifestyle’ and providing ’safe, enjoyable, sustainable food’ was just as important. He joked that food to Italians is like a religion and it is not easy to sell them frozen food; it had to be absolutely top quality and prepared like the ’Italian housewife’! That Italian housewife was also becoming more concerned that the food she buys comes from ethical sources e.g. no illegally caught fish, no illegal eggs and that the environment has been protected and respected.

All these consumer expectations are wrapped up in what the Brand means. The consumer trusts the Brand, therefore "Brands are our treasure" said Giampaolo.

Do you have the ’right’ to sell eggs?

Charlie Arnot, CEO of the Centre for Food Integrity (CFI) took the subject of trust and illustrated in more precise terms why it is so important. He told the audience "you don’t have the right to sell eggs". Companies are ’allowed’ to sell through the ’wishes of the public or stakeholders’, companies need to ’earn or maintain a ’Social Licence’ which is all about consumer trust. And Charlie warned, "You don’t select your stakeholders, they select you!"

If consumers/stakeholders trust your company or product they won’t place lots of restrictions on you. Violate your ’social license’ e.g. through a pollution or food safety infringement and you could instigate a chain reaction of social control, regulation, legislation and litigation. And more importantly, the ’control’ mechanisms may then apply to a whole industry, not just to an individual business. So it’s not just ’my farm but your farm too’.

So there is a ’collective interest’ to make sure an industry maintains public trust, it is no longer enough to say someone else can take care of whatever the issue is, now the whole industry has to be involved and proactive.

As Charlie succinctly put it, "Without trust you will be denied the ability to sell and all your other assets will have no value."

Charlie went on to outline how trust is influenced and how today society is is much more integrated, thus influence can come from many different directions and may be based as much on ’feelings’ as science. The food chain from producer, processor, distributor to retailer need to work together in a holistic way to identify internal and external business values and stakeholder expectations, and to then demonstrate delivery of those stakeholder requirements through certification or education for example.

Taking the theory and putting it into practice, the CFI is currently conducting a $6m research project for the US egg industry under the title "Coalition for Sustainable Egg Supply". The Coalition includes food companies, research institutions, NGOs and other stakeholders working to better understand the impact of various laying hen housing systems on a sustainable supply of eggs. Members believe there needs to be a balanced and holistic evaluation of egg production including environmental impact, food safety, worker safety, animal health and well-being, and food affordability in order to achieve a sustainable supply of eggs. Go to http://www2.sustainableeggcoalition.org/ for more info.

Fight against AI needs a ’football team’

Dr Ilaria Capua of the OIE/FAO Reference Laboratory for Avian Influenza and Newcastle Disease stressed the importance of continuing to monitor and work to control low path H5, H7 and H9AI outbreaks and H5N1 which is still active in Asia and Egypt. Dr Capua used a quote from Einstein to illustrate her point saying whereas Einstein famously said,

"Imagination is more important than knowledge"

"This is not to be applied when dealing with disease. Knowledge is most definitely more important".

Bird flu is the most devastating disease in the animal kingdom. H5N1 results in 100% death and delivers a lot of suffering for the birds. More importantly for human health, it kills 50% of people it infects. Dr Capua said "we have to try to eradicate it". "Animal health has to be controlled to protect public health."

Certainly much has been done to reduce the incidence. In 2007 H5N1 had spread from SE Asia to Africa and Europe, the first time contamination had spread to 3 continents. In 2012 the disease has been limited to just a few countries, mainly in Asia and also Egypt; however within those countries it is endemic. The objective in these countries has to be to try to map how and why the infection is moving and evolving? Much of the problem of continued incidence is the lack of biosecurity, the difficulty of fast, effective containment (Indonesia for example consists of 1000’s of islands whose people speak 5 different languages!) and in Egypt the problem has been exacerbated by the ’Arab Spring’ uprising as many people in the administration who used to deal with animal health have gone, their jobs either lost or new people put in their place. This makes control and communication even more difficult.

Responding to questions from the audience Dr Capua explained that whilst AI thrived better in cold conditions, the reason it was prevalent in warmer counties was that ’bio-security is key’. The less developed, warmer counties find it difficult to manage effective bio-security. She confirmed that wild birds are the source of primary infection; however it is man that carries the infection around.

And on the question of vaccination – does it work? "If it is the only tool used then the answer is no" said Dr Capua. "It’s like a football team with vaccine as the goalkeeper, you can’t win the match with only a goalkeeper, you have to have a whole team!"

Control of illegal egg down to industry

Herman Versteijlen, speaking on behalf of the European Commission reiterated the position over policing of the new welfare legislation, saying that it was up to Member States to enforce the legislation but that the Commission "have reminded member states of their obligations" and has initiated legal action against 12 countries. However he raised the temperature of quite a number in the audience by confirming that egg can be imported from outside the EU and there is no requirement to list the housing system of production because this would contravene World Trade Organisation regulations which forbid restrictions on welfare grounds. A buyer from Nestle France asked Mr Versteijlen how she could control if the eggs they used were compliant or not? She was told that it was down to her (individual business) to monitor and control its supply and to "get respect for your labels and promotion."

Interestingly Mr Versteijled said that the Commission felt that the non-compliance of other member states would be resolved soon, "before the summer"

he said.