AMERICAN consumers buy eggs from cage housing systems by a margin of more than 40 to one over eggs from cage-free systems, according to data from Information Resources Inc. (IRI), which tracks checkout scanner transactions from 34,000 grocery and other retail stores in the US.
Furthermore, based on other research, Americans pay three times less for eggs than Europeans do. Also, more than half of Americans prefer that egg producers continue to use current cage housing or migrate to alternative systems such as aviary or colony cages, and 44 per cent prefer cage-free housing.
These research results were to be presented to egg producers at the United Egg Producers (UEP) board of directors legislative meeting this week in Washington, D.C. An advance copy of the research was made available to Feedstuffs last week.
Choice
The IRI data found that 92pc of all eggs consumers purchased in retail stores in 2009 were from cage operations, just 2pc were from cage-free operations and only 1pc were from free-range/organic operations (Figure). The remaining 5pc of eggs were other specialty eggs, and the percentages were unchanged from 2008.
"Our farmers produce all of these kinds of eggs," UEP president Gene Gregory said.
He emphasised that UEP's position always has been that consumers should be free to choose the kind of egg they want to buy based on their ability to pay and their own personal opinions.
Gregory said "it's disturbing" that animal rights activists are trying to force restaurant and retail companies to take away that choice by making them buy eggs from only cage-free operations.
The data "clearly indicate that consumers, given a choice, prefer regular eggs over other kinds of eggs by an overwhelming majority," he said.
The IRI report notes that the average cost on April 30 for a dozen large-sized eggs from hens housed in modern cage systems was $1.10, while cage-free eggs cost almost three times more at $2.99/doz. and free-range/organic eggs cost almost four times more at $4.38/doz.
Competitive
Also to be presented to the UEP meeting is an analysis by Promar International, an economic consulting firm based in Washington, that found that American egg farmers are the most competitive in the world.
In August 2009, American consumers paid $1.63/doz. for eggs -- based on a weighted average of regular, cage-free and free-range eggs -- whereas consumers paid $5.81/doz. for eggs in Luxembourg, $5.76 in Denmark, $4.89 in the U.K. and $2.79 elsewhere in the Eurozone.
Promar said this difference is because of the efficiencies and large size of American egg farms compared with Europe and other parts of the world.
Promar also noted that European regulations require that European producers transition to "enriched" cage housing that provides hens with more space, nests, perches, scratching areas and other enrichments and suggested that this may cause "severe egg shortages and higher prices for eggs (in Europe) in the coming years".
UEP, based in Atlanta, Ga., represents 97pc of all egg farmers in the US.
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