SINGAPORE: Australia’s modest $3 million export egg business is poised to grow 600 per cent in 2017 as producers scramble to help fill a massive supply gap in South Korea.
Bird flu has wiped out about a third of South Korea’s layer flock – at least 26 million hens – prompting its government to ease the Asian nation’s usually strict barriers to egg imports and look to importing fresh breeding stock. Korean retailers are currently short of about 180 million eggs (15m dozen) a week.
Although other countries, including New Zealand, Spain and the US’s big egg industry, are also rallying to take advantage of the market opening, the local sector sees the Korean crisis as a chance to highlight Australia’s strong quarantine credentials and product quality.
It could also help boost our longer-term Asian egg export footprint, currently restricted primarily to Singapore, Hong Kong and parts of the Pacific. Australian Egg Corporation Limited (AECL) estimates up to $20m in exports could go to South Korea this year after import tariffs were recently lifted for at least six months.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity to highlight our natural advantage as a food producer and our strict biosecurity regulations,” said AECL managing director, Rowan McMonnies. Japan and China are also trying to control the bird flu outbreak which has spread across north eastern Asia for two months.
Japanese authorities have culled hundreds of thousands of birds in at least six separate outbreaks and China is promoting vaccinations, flock health and nutrition regimes.
