Let us start with the egg factory. The birds inside are just machines that have a life expectancy of up to two years, many die before they reach that age. Typical egg factories house 20,000-30,000 birds in each shed, two or more sheds are usually the minimum. Employee numbers are normally less than a handful, some working morning shift some the afternoon. I am discussing contract egg farmers not small family concerns that sometimes sell direct to the public or to local shops etc. the conditions the birds survive in are practically the same.
An egg can be laid at any time of the day or night. Most commercial birds will lay an egg every 22-24 hours producing roughly 300 eggs per year.
Collection is carried out first thing in the morning, when the day workers arrive, say 6-7am and last thing at night, before the afternoon workers leave, say between 4-5pm. This is a seven day a week enterprise so many shortcuts are introduced to make the whole concern economically viable. Shortcuts may mean that Saturday and Sunday collections only happen once therefore the eggs may lay where they have rolled for over twenty-four hours.
The eggs are then put in a large fridge until the contractor’s truck arrives to take a ‘load’ away. A load is defined as sufficient to constitute an economical return. Maybe every two days or so depending on how many can be stored in the fridge and how much room is available on the truck.
The truck transports the egg trolleys to the contract company’s warehouse where they may be stored for a few days before they are checked for cracks, sorted and classified by size etc. They then go back into the warehouse coolroom for a few more days awaiting collection from (or delivery to) a wholesale buyer
The wholesale buyer’s truck transports the now packed eggs in boxes to their depot coolroom with a first in/first out policy (I hope). The boxes may sit in the fridge for any number of days until an order comes in from a store wishing to replenish their stock.
The same scenario is apparent at the store; the boxes of eggs are kept in the stores coolroom until shelf room is available. They then sit on these shelves until a gullible customer arrives looking for fresh eggs
Tags: eggs
