Rising input costs threaten British eggs

For many years, egg sales enjoyed a bounce from the FSA’s 2017 decision that runny eggs “are suitable for all generations”. That’s according to British Egg Industry Council chair Andrew Joret.

As such, this year’s sales decline of 4.3% to £1.1bn won’t be seen as a disaster, even if volumes are down 9.9% [Kantar 52 w/e 10 July 2022]. Kantar analyst Allan Whyte stresses the category “still had a strong year overall”, with value £37.7m higher than in 2020 and £155m up on 2019.

Looking ahead, Joret is similarly cheery about the prospects for eggs, despite the economic outlook. He points out they usually sell well during recessions.

“There’s no reason to think this time will be any different,” he says. “Eggs fit into a wide variety of diets and lifestyles, and offer consumers a tasty, healthy, versatile and cost-effective solution.”

Even so, inflation looms large, with prices rising by an average of 6.7% (or 1p per egg) across the category over the past year.

Prices have been affected by the past year’s major avian flu outbreak. Another factor has been the Ukraine war’s effect on grain prices, which have driven up feed and other input costs.

For free-range and organic producers, who comprise most of the category, too few of the retail price hikes have made it back to them. The British Free Range Egg Producers Association has regularly warned producers could go out of business by the end of the year if this doesn’t change.

The average farmgate price paid to producers rose by just 9p per dozen eggs between April and September, the group said last week – far below the 40p target it had urged retailers, packers and processors to implement.

CEO Robert Gooch warned “we could still see egg shortages by the end of the year”. If that happens in any great volume, the prospect of UK supermarkets selling imported – and lower standard – eggs may not be so outlandish.