Supermarket war not an eggs-act science

Sue Neales
JANUARY 12, 2015
THE AUSTRALIAN
THE supermarket war is hotting up, with eggs the latest weapon in the battle to create differentiation in the minds of shoppers between Coles, Woolworths and Aldi.
As animal-welfare groups put pressure on retailers and fast-food companies to quit selling eggs or using eggs from intensive or “factory” farms, traditional or “caged eggs” are fast disappearing from supermarket shelves.
Stuck in between the marketing hype are Australian egg farmers, concerned that consumers are losing out on choice and price options and not being told the full story about the merits of different egg production systems.
Egg producers such as Bede Burke of Tamworth are also worried that sustaining production will be difficult if either legislation or altered consumer demand dictates a wholesale switch to eggs laid by chickens kept only in non-caged environments.
Mr Burke, a cropping and cattle farmer as well as egg producer, has 106,000 hens on his farm in larger-than-average pens, with about six birds to a cage to reduce broodiness. He supplies the market with 30 million eggs a year.
With Woolworths pledging to ban all “caged eggs” from its supermarket shelves by 2017, and Coles already removing eggs laid by caged hens from its own-brand range, Mr Burke had planned to convert half of his egg production to free-range hen systems, but a rare outbreak of avian bird flu in the NSW Young region late in 2013 — in which free-range hens in grazing paddocks caught the disease that is transmissible to humans­ from migratory birds — changed Mr Burke’s mind.
The company involved, Langfield Pastoral Company — which supplies about 4 per cent of Australia’s eggs — was forced under national emergency and quarantine rules to destroy all 200,000 free-range hens on his property and 250,000 birds kept in cages in neighbouring sheds.
“It was just at the time we looked at going part free-range because of the pressure from the animal liberation movement on consumers and supermarkets, but the frightening thing for me and my wife was that if that happened here on our farm it would close down the whole farm and all our egg operations,” he said yesterday. “As a small family farm, we felt the risk was too great; it wasn’t that we were putting all our eggs in the one basket and going all free-range — but that just too many factors, such as an outbreak of a notifiable disease, became outside our control.”
Mr Burke, chairman of the NSW Farmers Association’s egg committee, believes consumers need to look more closely and understand more about how eggs are produced. For example, hens kept in cages have much lower mortality and disease rates than commercial hens keep in free-range or barn pens, and lay more and cleaner eggs.
“Our biggest challenge is showing consumers that caged systems are not bad, because there is such a strong platform being pushed from the anti-caged-egg people,” he said.
“We know cages are the cheapest form of producing eggs, but we also argue there is no compromise in welfare to achieve that outcome. Science shows that hens in cages that are not overstocked perform well, have lower mortalities, the eggs are cleaner and farmers can manage their diet to prevent hens from going broody much more easily.
“We also know we need to have a social licence to operate — where consumers have faith that farmers are doing the best thing we can in terms of the welfare for the birds — and that is where I think we need to have a bigger discussion about risks, benefits, production and costs.”
Mr Burke makes no secret of his distaste at Woolworths’ decision to ban all eggs laid by caged birds from 2017. He believes this will impose big egg price rises on consumers — 15 per cent to 42 per cent according to recent studies from California, which went all free-range from January 1, force producers out of business who cannot afford to invest in new infrastructure, and affect egg supply because weekly production can vary by up to 30 per cent in the free-range hen business.
In contrast to Woolworths’ “outright” ban and Coles’s own-brand judgment against caged eggs, Aldi last year told the Australian Egg Corporation it wanted to offer customers a full range of egg choices.
“We will continue to provide our customers with all three options (free-range, barn-laid and caged eggs),” an Aldi spokesman told The Australian.
“Aldi sources eggs from small family-run businesses and larger egg producers who have invested hundreds of million dollars in the industry; by offering a range of eggs, consumers can make their purchasing decisions based on value and affordability.”