AMSTERDAM: With an increasing egg shortage due to the widespread bird flu outbreak, the United States will soon allow imported egg products from the Netherlands to be used for commercial baking and in processed foods.
IT’S the first time in more than a decade the US has bought eggs from a European nation, and comes as consumers are seeing a surge in shell egg prices and a Texas-based supermarket began limiting purchases.
Generally, the US produces enough eggs to meet domestic supply and export more than 30 million dozen eggs a month to trade partners including Mexico and Canada, the largest buyers.
But the H5N2 virus – which began to spread widely through Midwest farms in the early spring, including in Iowa, the nation’s largest egg producer – has left nearly 47 million birds dead or dying.
About 35 million were egg-laying hens that provided 80 per cent of the eggs for the breaker market – eggs broken then liquefied, dried or frozen to be used in processed foods like mayonnaise and pancake mixes or sold to bakeries to make cakes, cookies and other products.
Because there are fewer chickens laying eggs, a third of the supply for companies buying egg products has disappeared in just a few weeks.
“Our members are not able to get their hands on enough eggs to continue their production. It’s very much a crisis for us right now,” said Cory Martin, director of government relations for the American Bakers Association, a trade group representing wholesale bakeries including cookie and cracker maker Pepperidge Farm, Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corp, and White Plains, New York-based Linden’s Cookies.
Prices for egg products used by food manufacturers and bakeries jumped more than 200 per cent in the past month, and even large bakeries have been forced to buy eggs by the carton and crack them individually to continue production, Mr Martin said.
Only Canada has been certified to sell liquid, dried and frozen egg products to US companies in recent years.
But with manufacturers scrambling, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, which oversees importation of egg products, announced last week the Netherlands again had been approved to export to the US – something it hasn’t done since 2002.
“Through a rigorous process of verification by FSIS of The Netherlands government inspection system, FSIS has determined that the country’s food safety system continues to be equivalent to that of the US, which ensures that product is safe, wholesome and properly labelled,” the federal agency said in a statement.
Five egg processors in the Netherlands, which had been approved initially in 1987 but saw its certification expire, will begin selling to US companies as soon as export certificate language details can be worked out, FSIS spokesman Adam Tarr said. That’s expected to happen within a few days.
