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Part 2: Hendrix Genetics/Joice & Hill go in-depth on white eggs and their growth in the UK
7 Plays1 month ago
PART two of this edition of the Sustainability Podcast sees Tom, Teun and Nick delve into the topic of white-egg laying hens.
In just two years, white eggs have left behind the ‘processing egg’ tag and become a feature of the supermarket fixture nationwide, now occupying a 12% share of the UK laying flock.
In a more relaxed discussion, the three explain how white and brown eggs differ from the shopper’s perspective.
Spoiler alert: they don’t.
But as Teun and Nick explain, in the keeping of poultry, whether in the hard performance data, or the objective welfare outcomes or the softer and more subjective enjoyment of managing a flock, there is no comparison to their brown feathered cousins.
Farming is a tough way to earn a living, even in times of much-needed improvement in profitability.
Livestock is a 24/7 commitment, and a difficult flock can feel like a jail sentence.
Nick and Teun explain how their white hen, the Dekalb, has improved not just the financial outlook for producers, but their mental health too.
Not long ago, the notion of a 100-week flock cycle would be the preserve of moulted flocks in countries not interested in animal welfare or subject to the kind of regulation European markets take for granted.
The 500-egg club was the target, a glass ceiling waiting to be cracked.
Many have since achieved this milestone, and the 600 club awaits. How long until we see the first such performance? Listen to find out.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Profiles
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Sustainability Hub podcast.
00:00:03
Speaker
My name is Tom Willings.
00:00:05
Speaker
Today we're going to be talking about white eggs.
00:00:07
Speaker
I'm joined on the sofa by Turn van den Brach and Nick Bailey from Hendrix Genetics.
00:00:14
Speaker
Thanks for having us.
00:00:15
Speaker
Thank you.
00:00:16
Speaker
Pleasure to have you here.
00:00:17
Speaker
Pleasure to have you
White vs Brown Eggs: Myths and Realities
00:00:18
Speaker
here.
00:00:18
Speaker
So, chaps, we guys may have listened already to the conversation that we've had about sustainability in all its forms, but we've skirted around the topic of white egg, but we've not really delved into the detail.
00:00:33
Speaker
Let's try and cover in the next half an hour the myths, the facts, the different perspectives that make this topic so exciting, but so also divisive.
00:00:48
Speaker
And yeah, let's see if we can share what we know.
00:00:52
Speaker
So start with white versus brown, the consumer.
00:00:56
Speaker
I walk into my supermarket, white eggs seem to be everywhere.
00:01:01
Speaker
Sometimes they're in the low value packs.
00:01:04
Speaker
Sometimes they're in a brand, not really sure why they're different.
00:01:08
Speaker
Is there any difference?
00:01:09
Speaker
Hey, look, an egg's an egg.
00:01:10
Speaker
A white egg is nutritionally identical to a brown egg.
00:01:14
Speaker
There's no difference in the nutritional benefits of white or brown.
00:01:18
Speaker
So let's start with dispelling that myth.
00:01:22
Speaker
Let's get that one out there straight away.
00:01:28
Speaker
It is a consumer preference that's evolved.
00:01:31
Speaker
I think in Western Europe, certainly when there was intensification of egg production, consumers associated brown eggs more with sort of free range type systems, which is a complete myth because lots of brown eggs over the years have been produced
Benefits of White Egg Layers
00:01:48
Speaker
in Europe.
00:01:48
Speaker
engaged in cages and and nowadays white egg layers are predominantly in in especially in the uk in free range type systems um so i i think it's a huge myth really around white and versus brown i don't i think it's just an egg and i think the the benefits for for the society and the benefits for the consumer and the benefits for the farmer of white egg layers are huge um and not to be underestimated yeah
00:02:16
Speaker
And we said in part one, didn't we, we've got this global challenge of feeding 9 billion people, whatever.
00:02:23
Speaker
But a 22% growth requirement in the course of the next decade feels to me as someone who's had some exposure to the potential of white laying hens over brown laying hens that much of that increase could be delivered by simply changing the bird.
00:02:40
Speaker
Yes, definitely.
00:02:41
Speaker
I mean, feed conversion is obviously better, but the real game changing is being able to keep the birds longer.
00:02:47
Speaker
Persistence in lay and the length of the cycle.
Eggs as a Superfood
00:02:50
Speaker
So when you look at a farming cycle with, you know, a number of weeks empty or days to weeks empty for clean out, if that's on a two year basis instead of an 18 month basis, suddenly you're that much more efficient.
00:03:02
Speaker
Your downtime has been reduced by a third.
00:03:05
Speaker
I think a nice example is if you look over a five year period, typically brown free range flocks being kept say 80 weeks.
00:03:14
Speaker
If you keep your flock to 80 weeks, you've got to buy four bullet flocks in five years.
00:03:19
Speaker
If you are in white eggs and you're keeping your birds to 100 weeks, that's only three flocks you've got to buy as a hatchery.
00:03:28
Speaker
And you know, that means we sell less chicks.
00:03:31
Speaker
um but in terms of the benefits for consumers they get a a better product they can feel good that those hens have been uh having a healthy productive life for two years and in terms of the farmer he's got to turn around his farm one less time in a five-year period he's got less investment cost in in pullets and from a sustainability benefit you know rearing one less crop of
00:03:57
Speaker
of pullets in a five year period has a significant carbon footprint implications as well.
00:04:02
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:04:03
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:04:04
Speaker
No, and it's, well, you just mentioned, well, it's just an egg.
00:04:07
Speaker
No, it's a superfood.
00:04:08
Speaker
So that is something whether an egg is white or brown, I just wanted to mention that as well.
00:04:12
Speaker
It's a true superfood.
00:04:13
Speaker
And that's where the more than 20% demand in growth
Consumer Perceptions and Market Trends
00:04:18
Speaker
also comes from.
00:04:18
Speaker
I'm pretty sure Rubberbank said that most of the growth in protein is going to come from poultry and eggs.
00:04:23
Speaker
Absolutely, absolutely.
00:04:24
Speaker
Pulture and eggs, they are definitely the ones above 20%.
00:04:29
Speaker
All animal protein will grow because, well, the world population will grow.
00:04:32
Speaker
There's a few billion extra people on this planet in the coming 50, 60 years.
00:04:38
Speaker
So there's a lot of extra mouth to feed as well.
00:04:41
Speaker
But that's the benefit of an egg.
00:04:44
Speaker
And that's why also the United Nations a few years ago, they named the egg together with pulses as a superfood.
00:04:51
Speaker
It's a nutrition bomb, isn't it?
00:04:52
Speaker
It's a nutrition bomb.
00:04:53
Speaker
The basis of life is inside the egg.
00:04:56
Speaker
Didn't see that coming.
00:04:57
Speaker
No, no, no.
00:04:58
Speaker
But it's absolutely true.
00:04:59
Speaker
So what is for me always surprising, looking from the sideline, always when I go into the supermarket, I will observe people buying, making the choice in front of the egg shelf.
00:05:11
Speaker
And it's like, what would be going on in their minds?
00:05:14
Speaker
And of course, there's different labels and logos and things like that.
00:05:18
Speaker
But in the end, when you look at the shell, I don't know a single person who's eating the shell.
00:05:24
Speaker
It's a packaging.
00:05:26
Speaker
Don't forget, we can also see it as the egg shell is a packaging of the content.
00:05:30
Speaker
You don't eat the egg shell itself.
00:05:33
Speaker
But indeed, as Nick said, you throw it away.
00:05:36
Speaker
The association with more natural, more organic, more...
00:05:42
Speaker
etc, etc.
00:05:45
Speaker
That is an association and that's a very strong myth.
00:05:48
Speaker
Has anyone actually seen any studies on that is consumer perspective?
00:05:53
Speaker
Because I hear it all the time as sort of the colloquial assumption that people don't want white because it's seen as industrial, it's seen as either washed or artificially cleaned.
00:06:04
Speaker
It's seen as unnatural.
00:06:04
Speaker
That's just an assumption, Don.
00:06:06
Speaker
Has anyone got any studies that say why people want brown or don't want white?
00:06:10
Speaker
I think it's just a change.
00:06:11
Speaker
I think inevitably when you change something, you get people going, oh, that's different, oh, I'm not sure about that.
00:06:18
Speaker
But in general, what we've seen in the Netherlands, when they switch from brown eggs on the retail shelves to white, there was a period of probably, oh, there's more white eggs, well, where's the brown ones gone?
00:06:29
Speaker
But eventually, in a very short time period, people just accept brown eggs.
00:06:35
Speaker
that's what's on offer.
00:06:36
Speaker
It's a great opportunity to have someone from Europe and one who, you know, been in the industry for the length of time that you have turned and travels as extensively as you do.
00:06:47
Speaker
So if I ask you some stats questions, you know, I wonder, I don't know, I know you know an awful lot about poultry breeding, but egg marketing might be slightly off piece for you.
00:06:55
Speaker
But
00:06:56
Speaker
I can't imagine that per capita consumption in those countries that have transitioned from brown to white has taken a backward step.
00:07:06
Speaker
Oh, no, not at all.
00:07:07
Speaker
It didn't go down.
00:07:08
Speaker
It didn't go down at all.
00:07:09
Speaker
And for example, the countries that made the transition, it started in the Scandinavian countries.
00:07:14
Speaker
Then it went to Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, for example, in just 10 years, it more or less completely shifted from brown to white.
00:07:24
Speaker
But Germany, the same.
00:07:25
Speaker
Or, well, they introduced a tinted egg for their organic markets to have some sort of differentiation in the egg shelf.
00:07:32
Speaker
So people could associate a tinted egg.
00:07:33
Speaker
Oh, this is my organic egg, you know.
00:07:36
Speaker
Did they do that?
00:07:37
Speaker
That's what happened in Germany and Austria.
00:07:41
Speaker
In some markets, they do that.
00:07:42
Speaker
And especially also still in the Netherlands because of specific labeling and coding and quality systems.
00:07:49
Speaker
For example, when a producer has a free-range flock,
00:07:54
Speaker
and an aviary flock, a barn flock on the same premises, which happens, then they need to work with two different colors because, well, there's always a saying, never trust a bird keeper.
00:08:06
Speaker
All of a sudden... In this country today.
00:08:08
Speaker
Okay, lovely, lovely.
00:08:09
Speaker
It's all free range.
00:08:12
Speaker
Exactly.
00:08:13
Speaker
So that's different.
00:08:14
Speaker
But therefore, in some countries, you therefore see some legislation that they are not allowed to have the same color for the different housing systems on one farm because they could potentially mix up and put the barn eggs into the free range.
00:08:28
Speaker
Back to my original question, has the transition of white affected the consumption?
00:08:36
Speaker
No, it certainly hasn't affected it negatively.
00:08:38
Speaker
Consumption has continued to grow.
00:08:41
Speaker
I would hazard a guess that our consumption in the UK has not kept pace with
00:08:46
Speaker
with the consumption and growth in Europe.
00:08:48
Speaker
And there'll be people, you know, the industry bigwigs sort of shouting, well, there haven't been enough eggs to supply and therefore our consumption is not growing.
00:08:55
Speaker
Or, you know, whether it's avian flu.
00:08:59
Speaker
I'm sure there is.
00:08:59
Speaker
But I would also say that from every statistic I've seen, you know, I remember when I first joined in 2010, I think the per capita consumption would have been in the high 180s, 188, 187, something like that.
00:09:08
Speaker
And the last I've seen, maybe it touches 200.
00:09:10
Speaker
And maybe a proportion of that,
00:09:16
Speaker
hiatus, you know, interruption in growth is owing to avian flu, or the supply pinch of 2022.
00:09:26
Speaker
But I don't fully buy that.
Promoting Eggs Beyond Breakfast
00:09:30
Speaker
And yet I see the European figures and the growth of markets who have put, you know, in the same time, they've put 10% plus, you
00:09:38
Speaker
compound annual growth on the same period.
00:09:40
Speaker
And we're languishing at five, less than five.
00:09:44
Speaker
I don't buy that shell egg colour is either an inhibitor.
00:09:50
Speaker
I don't think it's either a promoter to consumption.
00:09:53
Speaker
For me, the consumption growth comes from, you know,
00:09:59
Speaker
cultural habits the way we the way we choose to cook at home and and and what we choose to we should be promoting eggs as not just a breakfast meal we should have been promoting eggs on that way for 50 years and there's definitely people who are passionately doing just that and and they and they do a you know they're wonderfully durable and a very persistent job but it's not it's not working is my point and i want to see i'm a i'm an incredible advocate for white eggs yeah i think i think that
00:10:26
Speaker
Tom, you're a sports guy.
00:10:27
Speaker
You're a healthy living guy.
00:10:28
Speaker
What was that?
00:10:29
Speaker
Sports guy.
00:10:30
Speaker
You're always training and stuff.
00:10:32
Speaker
And I think in some countries, they've got better across the message that eggs are a super healthy food and that they really can drive a much healthier lifestyle.
00:10:43
Speaker
I'd flip it.
00:10:44
Speaker
I'd say others have cottoned on quickly that the rest of the diet is making us ill.
00:10:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:50
Speaker
And that, you know, ultra processed foods and convenience food, you know, dial a pizza kind of Uber Eats equivalent.
00:11:00
Speaker
I probably shouldn't say that.
00:11:01
Speaker
But, you know, I think in this country, we've been very slow to adopt a healthier approach to
Health Benefits of Natural Protein
00:11:08
Speaker
eating.
00:11:08
Speaker
And I'm comforted in some of the things I've read and seen in the course of the last year that said studies are
00:11:16
Speaker
studies, reports, coverage like the ultra-processed people book that Dr Chris Van Tullikam has released in the last couple of years, starting to bring people into a greater degree of awareness as to the health implications in the long term of eating processed food.
00:11:36
Speaker
And that five years or so ago, the livestock sector, the food industry associated with primary production and farming was concerned that
00:11:44
Speaker
lab grown meat, you know, plant based, but not really plant based, you know, again, scientifically created alternative proteins was going to be where all of the investment and all of the growth came and that we were on a managed decline.
00:12:01
Speaker
And actually, that appears to be reversing, that younger people are now more attuned to the fact that they do need the essential amino acids.
00:12:06
Speaker
They do need the natural protein that the animal proteins provide, but they also need to eat a sensible quantity of it and they need to eat a high... The vitamins in an egg, the proteins in an egg are all extremely
Growth and Impact of White Egg Layers in Europe
00:12:20
Speaker
good.
00:12:20
Speaker
And how, you know, people talk about convenience, but how convenient is that?
00:12:24
Speaker
is that shell that you just crack open, whisk into some scrambled eggs and pop it on some granary toast and you've got a super nutritious meal in minutes.
00:12:33
Speaker
I mean, literally in minutes.
00:12:34
Speaker
And that's for many people, they don't want to spend a lot of time cooking.
00:12:38
Speaker
They don't want to spend a lot of time messing around making food.
00:12:41
Speaker
And so for me, that's a fabulous news story.
00:12:45
Speaker
We're all of the egg industry.
00:12:46
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:12:48
Speaker
We're all promoters of eggs.
00:12:49
Speaker
Between us, we probably eat two and a half thousand eggs a year.
00:12:57
Speaker
We kind of would say that, wouldn't we?
00:12:59
Speaker
But certainly the shell egg color debate that appears to hold back...
00:13:04
Speaker
you know that that transition i think that's a misnomer i think there's probably some people who pick up the phone when they've ordered um a box of eggs on ocado or something like that and and uh some white eggs are turned up and maybe the odd person complain about that but you have the other way around as well i mean when delia started putting white eggs on the cover of her cookery books we had many people phone up saying
00:13:29
Speaker
can we get some white egg layers please?
00:13:30
Speaker
We love the look of those white eggs on Delia's cookbook.
00:13:34
Speaker
And that was a few years ago and there wasn't the white hens about there.
00:13:37
Speaker
We started with placing white parents in the UK only probably eight years ago.
00:13:44
Speaker
And that was very, very niche.
00:13:47
Speaker
We were probably selling only 300,000 white egg layers a year and that was mainly going into particular markets for particular reasons.
00:13:56
Speaker
But what we've seen in the last three years is a doubling every year.
00:14:00
Speaker
I mean, we went from 500,000 to a million to 2 million to 3 million last year.
00:14:06
Speaker
And that increase has just been exponential.
00:14:10
Speaker
Yeah, 12% of the chip placements in the UK in the last 12 months have been white.
00:14:15
Speaker
Yeah, from 1% five years ago.
00:14:16
Speaker
Yeah, and that's been driven by,
00:14:22
Speaker
largely at the outset by producers voting with their feet for white hens because once they'd had a flock of decal whites, which are super easy to manage, they really have changed the scene in Europe on...
00:14:40
Speaker
on managing birds and extensive systems.
00:14:44
Speaker
And once egg producers have had a flock of decal white in their systems, they don't want anything else.
00:14:50
Speaker
They don't want to go back to brown because they don't get Florex.
00:14:53
Speaker
I mean, it's a harder word.
00:14:55
Speaker
Can I, can I, you know, crystal ball time,
00:14:58
Speaker
What does the future hold?
00:14:59
Speaker
What do the next two or three years hold?
00:15:00
Speaker
Are we going to see a continued increase at the same rate or even a faster rate of white in the UK flock?
00:15:06
Speaker
Are we going to hold station now or are we going to retract?
00:15:09
Speaker
Because there are polar views as to what the next few years will hold.
00:15:13
Speaker
I'm sure there is.
00:15:15
Speaker
One of the things that I'm really noticing a trend at...
00:15:18
Speaker
is that there aren't the people about who want to produce anything.
00:15:23
Speaker
I'm not talking about food, but producing stuff is getting more and more difficult.
00:15:27
Speaker
And that's a function of the cost of having the means of production, whether it's a farm or a factory.
00:15:32
Speaker
But it's also a function of having the labour and having people who are working in a happy environment, are happy with the job they're doing and don't have mega challenges.
00:15:42
Speaker
You're talking at farm level?
00:15:43
Speaker
At farm level of picking up floor eggs, of...
00:15:47
Speaker
managing cannibalism or managing some of the vices that we see with brown birds such as smothering, you just don't get with decold white and birds similar to that, but particularly decold white.
00:16:00
Speaker
And I'm seeing farmers just voting with their feet on that.
00:16:04
Speaker
And you've got to think about the mental health of the farmer as well.
00:16:07
Speaker
So
00:16:08
Speaker
The push towards free range systems in the UK has gone at a pace.
00:16:19
Speaker
And it's
Sustainability and Efficiency in Egg Production
00:16:20
Speaker
been very beneficial for some farming communities.
00:16:22
Speaker
You've got farming communities where a relatively small farm and they really struggle to find an income stream for the next generation coming through on that farm.
00:16:31
Speaker
Maybe they have some sheep and there's not enough of income coming through for the farm to sustain the next generation.
00:16:39
Speaker
And they've mortgaged their farm to put up a hen house on the encouragement of supermarkets wanting to transition away from colony eggs and into free range, which is the direction of travel that people say they want.
00:16:54
Speaker
And that's what the industry has done.
00:16:56
Speaker
And that's what the retail have agreed to do.
00:16:59
Speaker
But those family farms put their life work in the balance, really.
00:17:09
Speaker
So if they're using a product which is easy to manage, is resilient, and they can keep to 100 weeks profitably, that's a big load off the strain of that farming family.
00:17:21
Speaker
If they have a flock which is not performing, which is struggling with floor eggs,
00:17:28
Speaker
You know, we know that the market shifts from time to time when eggs are plentiful, then, you know, the prices go down and the margins for farmers are under pressure.
00:17:39
Speaker
And in those scenarios, the last thing you want to have is a poorly performing flock or a flock that's laying
00:17:46
Speaker
10% of the eggs on the floor that you're getting a second quality egg price for.
00:17:50
Speaker
I mean, this is a major big deal for the mental health of our farmers who are producing food every day for UK consumers to eat.
00:18:00
Speaker
Loud and clear.
00:18:01
Speaker
I hear you loud and clear.
00:18:02
Speaker
And I think I would love it for...
00:18:06
Speaker
the chain, processor, packer and supermarket, you know, quick service restaurant, whoever it might be, to hear that and place suitable degree of value on the fact that the people that produce food at grassroots level and how they feel about the job that they do matters as much as the quality of the product matters as much as the price of the product and the environment of the product.
00:18:34
Speaker
Or the environmental impact of the product that they produce, because that's a huge, hugely positive supporting argument to let farmers choose what they want to produce.
00:18:44
Speaker
But that's the nub of the issue, is that the farmers generally produce what the market wants.
00:18:53
Speaker
asks, stroke tells them to produce.
00:18:56
Speaker
And I question, I wonder whether or not that's true abroad, whether or not we are so intrinsically aligned to the point of being totally dominated by
00:19:09
Speaker
The handful of supermarket chains in this country that if they say, I don't wish to take a risk, it's not that I've got data that tells me that, you know, this is what my customer wants.
00:19:18
Speaker
I just simply do not want to risk that it might not be what my customer wants.
00:19:22
Speaker
And therefore, I want to maintain the status quo.
00:19:24
Speaker
The retailers in the Netherlands are any more or less powerful than retailers we have in Australia?
00:19:30
Speaker
No, in terms of the Netherlands, it's just 18 million people.
00:19:34
Speaker
So it's, but there, well, we have more or less the same.
00:19:37
Speaker
Well, yeah, or socioeconomics in the European mainland are quite different compared to the UK.
00:19:45
Speaker
So overall, and especially in the Netherlands, well, there will be discounters, but in the end, it are the discounters, the German discounters that are driving the change, which is quite...
00:19:59
Speaker
eye-opening because... Why do they want white?
00:20:01
Speaker
For example, Little, the choice they made to go white is that they saw, hey, there is willingness for the people to adopt these whites.
00:20:10
Speaker
And on the other hand, they saw we have a global commitment to make.
00:20:15
Speaker
We want to lower the carbon footprint of our business.
00:20:19
Speaker
And that is, especially with the new European reporting rules, you need to show that you're making improvements year after year after year.
00:20:29
Speaker
So by looking through your whole chain and seeing, okay, where can we make a big difference?
00:20:35
Speaker
And then moving away from brown, adopting the white, you can make easily a 6% improvement on carbon footprint.
00:20:43
Speaker
So that is, and also Albert Heijn, that's our largest retailer in the Netherlands with more than 40% market share.
00:20:50
Speaker
2024, they announced that all their own label brands would be the White X. Even now, the Rondale has the first flocks in rearing, in rear, white flocks.
00:21:02
Speaker
So because they see from, we only have one planet, from a sustainability point of view, the white bird was ticking all the boxes.
00:21:11
Speaker
Welfare, carbon footprint, land use, feed consumption, the ability to deal with
00:21:17
Speaker
The lower quality diets, the joy for the farmer in his day-to-day life.
00:21:22
Speaker
Less interventions, beet trimming, non-beet trimming.
00:21:24
Speaker
Exactly, exactly.
00:21:25
Speaker
So it's the whole combination.
00:21:27
Speaker
Less animals, four more eggs.
00:21:28
Speaker
This is why we were talking about earlier, weren't we, in chickens and the slower growing movement and that being to do with sustainability, but sustainability being, you know...
00:21:36
Speaker
welfare or perceived welfare and the compromises of efficiency to do with i'm loathe to just talk about carbon footprint but let's talk feed conversion efficiency you know there is a diminishing volume area of um of land available for crop cultivation feeding crops to animals is less efficient than feeding crops directly to
00:22:01
Speaker
to humans if we are to feed ourselves on on a big picture basis we need to major on efficiency and there is a direct contradiction in a lot of cases when you when you take sustainability from the perspective of welfare against the use of natural resources but in the case of white hens it's
00:22:24
Speaker
You get all of the welfare upticks to do with longer laying cycle, improved outcome measures, however you want to report about that.
The Role of Storytelling and Consumer Education
00:22:36
Speaker
As I say, the ability to deal with reduced interventions, a more robust bird over a longer laying cycle that is more productive using less resources.
00:22:48
Speaker
I can't understand that.
00:22:51
Speaker
what the barrier is to using more of them and quickly.
00:22:54
Speaker
Well, we should also as a sector do a better job in telling the story and especially get supermarkets aligned with that.
00:23:01
Speaker
And look at an egg carton.
00:23:03
Speaker
How much information is there on the egg carton?
00:23:05
Speaker
Well, you open it when you buy eggs.
00:23:07
Speaker
You open it every time.
00:23:09
Speaker
When you take an egg out of the box, you can see it and you can write there the story and we can do a much better job there.
00:23:16
Speaker
But also with all the influences we have with our chefs, it's a mutual responsibility of the sector, together with the supermarkets, to educate the consumer.
00:23:26
Speaker
I take a different view, a mildly different view.
00:23:29
Speaker
That information is there for anyone who wants to go and find it.
00:23:32
Speaker
The majority of people don't.
00:23:34
Speaker
I don't think that that's going to change.
00:23:36
Speaker
People are not going to fall in love with learning the backstory about how all of the food that they eat has been produced.
00:23:43
Speaker
There needs to be just some simple decisions made about this is common sense.
00:23:47
Speaker
Let's get on and embrace the change.
00:23:49
Speaker
And whoever came up with the idea that whitebirds were easy to manage and the farmers were happier with whitebirds than brown.
00:23:56
Speaker
whether it was a retailer, a processor or the farmer themselves, it doesn't matter.
00:23:59
Speaker
The strength of the upside of the change is such that it seems to me to be almost irresponsible not to embrace it and not to look to take it forward.
00:24:12
Speaker
I mean, I challenge a little bit as well on the efficiency.
00:24:15
Speaker
I mean, many years ago, I did go vegetarian for a brief period because of the story about land use and it being more efficient use of land to feed, to have a vegetarian diet.
00:24:28
Speaker
But there are many, it's much more nuanced than that.
00:24:31
Speaker
If you look at the feed conversions of modern meat chickens, it's about 1.3.
00:24:38
Speaker
With eggs, it can be under 2.0.
00:24:40
Speaker
And that's a really efficient conversion rate.
00:24:44
Speaker
And then you've got a very concentrated nutrient source that, yeah, perhaps as an argument, as a society, we need to eat less meat, less animal protein.
00:24:55
Speaker
But animal proteins like eggs, for instance, are incredibly important in especially developing young people.
00:25:04
Speaker
And they need to have that nutrient bomb.
00:25:06
Speaker
They need to have that good source of protein.
Circular Economy and the Role of Chickens
00:25:09
Speaker
So I think it's a bit more complex than that, than simply saying, let's go on to a vegetarian diet.
00:25:16
Speaker
And I fully support people who want to make that lifestyle choice to be a vegetarian or a vegan or what have you.
00:25:24
Speaker
But there is a...
00:25:26
Speaker
room and we are naturally omnivores there is room there for for people who want to and choose to to feed themselves with with animal protein and the good news stories with eggs and with and with meat chickens is is a very low carbon footprint for a relatively high density food that you're getting out of out of those birds yeah and an animal that's capable of eating a variety of different feed raw materials
00:25:54
Speaker
flexibly different you know diets that are tailored to to birds using raw materials that are regional you know we don't need to be based on this sort of and then there's the whole argument about you know whether those alternative those plant sources of protein comes from i mean you're talking about almonds imported from
00:26:16
Speaker
you know, monoculture in California or avocados or soy proteins that have been processed into the
00:26:26
Speaker
But also if you see what today's chickens can digest, so dry distiller grains, soya scrape, sunflower hulls, all the stuff we can't digest as human beings, they are able to produce good quality eggs out of it.
00:26:42
Speaker
So they do fit also in the whole circular economy.
00:26:48
Speaker
You need some animals at some stage.
00:26:50
Speaker
That's where they pop up.
00:26:52
Speaker
Pigs and poultry have historically been...
00:26:56
Speaker
That's been the purpose.
00:26:57
Speaker
That's why they've been on farms.
00:26:58
Speaker
The scraps have gone to the pig and the poultry, and they've been converting that into useful food.
00:27:05
Speaker
And they can pretty much digest, like you say.
00:27:08
Speaker
Without the pig, without the poultry, that waste is waste.
00:27:12
Speaker
And then you have manure to put on the land to fertilise to grow the crops.
00:27:16
Speaker
There we go.
00:27:17
Speaker
Yeah, so it fits that circular economy and it keeps on ticking all those boxes.
00:27:24
Speaker
But indeed, what you see then happening in Western Europe is the quick adoption of the white egg.
00:27:30
Speaker
So that is definitely there.
00:27:32
Speaker
Well, you mentioned in the beginning, is the white egg there to stay in the UK?
00:27:35
Speaker
Yes or not?
00:27:36
Speaker
I truly myself, I do believe there is a future and a brighter future for the white egg.
00:27:44
Speaker
But it's a matter of indeed embracing it and the role of the supermarkets or for the larger...
00:27:51
Speaker
food service
Market Dynamics and Pricing Strategies
00:27:52
Speaker
companies or like McDonald's.
00:27:54
Speaker
Who does see an egg at McDonald's?
00:27:56
Speaker
Nobody sees the egg.
00:27:58
Speaker
But they can completely put their whole chain into white egg only, for example.
00:28:03
Speaker
And that's a lot of eggs on a yearly scale.
00:28:06
Speaker
And more and more food service companies can also make that decision and that choice to adopt it.
00:28:12
Speaker
But the other point is, as the retailers move away from Colony Egg, there needs to be an entry level offering there for consumers.
00:28:24
Speaker
And there hasn't been the uptake of Barn, which is one of the things that retailers were initially talking about.
00:28:32
Speaker
so so some of that entry-level product is going to be free range and the cheapest way to produce free-range eggs will be with white egg layers the cheapest way to produce any egg is white eggs i think yeah ultimately yes and and and yes you can have premium white offerings where the birds have a you know an enriched diet or this kind of thing it's not purely an entry point product but but it gives an option there
00:28:58
Speaker
on the entry point for retailers to offer a good value offering of egg.
00:29:04
Speaker
And then we can build the tiers of the egg offering from that low cost entry point.
00:29:12
Speaker
You would be one that would favour market segmentation with value.
00:29:18
Speaker
you know, being where white eggs sat.
00:29:21
Speaker
Sat, yeah.
00:29:22
Speaker
Yeah, with some premium offering.
00:29:24
Speaker
But then you can have above that, you can have a standard brown egg offering from or a branded brown egg offering from a free range.
00:29:32
Speaker
Many brands are available.
00:29:34
Speaker
And then you've got your premium offering your speciality egg or your organic egg.
00:29:40
Speaker
But you need something to offer a good value egg to consumers.
00:29:45
Speaker
I would cut the cake slightly differently if it were me.
00:29:48
Speaker
I absolutely see value in the differentiation using shell colour.
00:29:53
Speaker
You know, the very, very established brands that have got distinct, distinctly different shell colours.
00:30:00
Speaker
And, you know, those brands are probably talking about taste and provenance, heritage, etc., as well as the shell colour.
00:30:08
Speaker
But I think it's for me, at least my opinion would be that to keep the white shell egg as the value entry line, that segment of the market,
00:30:20
Speaker
and potentially keep it out of widespread use in free range is to forego the full scale of the opportunity.
00:30:29
Speaker
If the value segment is somewhere between 20 and 35% of the overall market and then free range, 60% of the overall market, I
00:30:42
Speaker
I want that 60% of the market as well as the value.
00:30:44
Speaker
I think you're right, Tom, but I think we don't need to be afraid of having white eggs sitting at that entry point either.
00:30:53
Speaker
So, you know, we're not going to get enough barn white egg to supply the volume end of the value entry point on eggs.
00:31:03
Speaker
So inevitably some of that is going to be white free range, but I don't see that as a negative.
00:31:08
Speaker
I don't.
00:31:10
Speaker
And I don't think it precludes white egg sitting in other offers, whether it's a branded free-range egg.
00:31:16
Speaker
Completely.
00:31:17
Speaker
I would challenge anyone who said, oh, you couldn't differentiate white egg from white egg.
00:31:23
Speaker
We can do it.
00:31:24
Speaker
Or you can do it.
00:31:24
Speaker
And there are people that have done it with brown egg perfectly successfully, whether it's on taste, whether it's on welfare.
00:31:29
Speaker
The code is there anyway.
00:31:30
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think that's about it.
00:31:32
Speaker
And if you look back home to the Netherlands, well, the two supermarkets, so Little, they took the approach.
00:31:39
Speaker
premium egg to introduce the whites.
00:31:42
Speaker
Albert Heim took the approach, the value egg, the budget egg.
00:31:44
Speaker
What is the consumer thing?
00:31:45
Speaker
They're completely confused.
00:31:47
Speaker
Well, but both had a different strategy.
00:31:49
Speaker
But in the end, it resulted both in the full portfolio of their egg offerings being white.
00:31:55
Speaker
So both were successful in the way they approached it.
00:31:58
Speaker
So the approach itself really would not matter in my opinion, but it's...
00:32:06
Speaker
So, yeah, you need to be a little bit persistent in your actions.
00:32:10
Speaker
You need to have a little bit of patience.
00:32:12
Speaker
But the consumer needs to get some time to get used to it.
00:32:15
Speaker
And, well, of course, in this part of the world, in the UK, your egg prices in the supermarkets are generally lower compared to the rest of Europe.
00:32:26
Speaker
So for you, a six pack, they're relatively cheap, so to say it.
00:32:32
Speaker
Some of those American egg prices right now.
00:32:34
Speaker
Oh, absolutely.
00:32:35
Speaker
It's insane.
00:32:36
Speaker
$8.40.
00:32:36
Speaker
$8.40 for a dozen.
00:32:38
Speaker
Producer price.
00:32:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:40
Speaker
I heard even, I mean, you guys would be in all sorts of difficulty because the hatching eggs, the breeder farms, they can earn more money if they were to sell their eggs to the table egg market.
00:32:51
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:32:52
Speaker
Imagine there'd be no more chicks.
00:32:54
Speaker
It'd be the end of the industry.
00:32:55
Speaker
It'd be nuts.
00:32:56
Speaker
The market at the moment there is absolutely insane.
00:32:59
Speaker
But in the end, what is valid, the producer needs to get the proper price.
00:33:03
Speaker
Whether it's a brown egg or a white egg, it doesn't matter.
00:33:06
Speaker
The only way how the sector can sustain itself is by producers who are not suffering.
Investments in Sustainability and Innovation
00:33:12
Speaker
So squeezing out the producers, what has happened a few years ago where a lot of them went completely bankrupt.
00:33:18
Speaker
And then indeed what Nick just was touching upon as well, the mental well-being of the producers.
00:33:24
Speaker
that is not a healthy situation and that's not a sustainable situation.
00:33:28
Speaker
So that is also something that I definitely think that the supermarkets need to stop squeezing the producers for the low prices.
00:33:38
Speaker
The part in demand is an unavoidable, inevitable force at play and it will always have a...
00:33:47
Speaker
defining effect on the profitability of a sector and of a market.
00:33:55
Speaker
And of course there's fluctuations and there's always times when egg prices are under pressure.
00:34:01
Speaker
I think at the moment we're going through a period where eggs are short for all the reasons that have been previously discussed probably many times in the poultry press but
00:34:10
Speaker
I think the good producers at the moment are investing in their business to make themselves stronger for the future.
00:34:17
Speaker
So the good producers are investing in reducing their energy demands by putting renewables up or building resilience into their business.
00:34:31
Speaker
And that's really encouraging to see.
00:34:33
Speaker
But white eggs, white birds are a big part of that.
00:34:38
Speaker
from my perspective, from what I've seen and the experiences I've lived as well in managing groups of farms where whitebirds have been introduced, the variability in the performance of white flocks that I've observed has been far less than the variability of very traditional, commonly used brown flocks.
00:35:02
Speaker
They just seem to have
00:35:04
Speaker
waltzed on through you know perennial challenges that brown flocks might may have succumbed to and most farms producing white regardless of shape or size or age of farm appear to be able to get pretty equivalent results well into that last final third of of life i think you're dead right i mean we were with a major uk egg pecker last night and and they were um
00:35:27
Speaker
I asked the question particularly, is there a large difference between your best producer's result and your worst producer's result?
00:35:35
Speaker
And we're talking, you know, almost an order of magnitude difference.
00:35:38
Speaker
I mean, 260 eggs versus 350 eggs.
00:35:39
Speaker
I mean, it's...
00:35:43
Speaker
per bird i mean it's massive and i'm pretty sure that if more of that flock base was on white and particularly the farms that have had historically had more difficult um results and more difficult challenges to in managing the birds on those farms were to use white i'm pretty sure that gap would narrow i think you'd have it at least yes yeah absolutely yeah
00:36:05
Speaker
Let me ask you about the clubs.
00:36:07
Speaker
It wasn't very long ago that 100 weeks was mind-blowing to a free-range egg farmer.
00:36:12
Speaker
We're now routinely seeing 100 weeks being the target age and several farms that I'm aware of have gone beyond.
00:36:25
Speaker
I've seen some stats that you've presented at conferences in the past, too.
00:36:30
Speaker
with some exemplar flocks in other countries going, you know, maybe 120 weeks, if I'm not mistaken, or maybe not quite that, but approaching 600 weeks.
00:36:38
Speaker
600 eggs.
00:36:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:40
Speaker
Oh, 600 eggs, not weeks.
00:36:41
Speaker
Sorry.
00:36:42
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:36:43
Speaker
Maybe in the future.
00:36:44
Speaker
In the future.
00:36:45
Speaker
Oh, well, we will be out of business, Nick.
00:36:48
Speaker
But that is my question.
00:36:49
Speaker
When are we going to see 600 eggs?
00:36:51
Speaker
Oh, when?
00:36:51
Speaker
Well, it's getting there.
00:36:53
Speaker
It will be very shortly.
00:36:57
Speaker
Where is it going to happen?
00:36:59
Speaker
Well, it could even be the UK.
00:37:01
Speaker
If I see the latest results that some of your producers here, 544, it is absolutely impressive.
00:37:07
Speaker
Well, the best flock I've seen so far in a single cycle was indeed the 594X.
White Hens: Disease Resistance and Behavior
00:37:12
Speaker
That was an organic flock.
00:37:15
Speaker
Organic flock.
00:37:16
Speaker
But don't forget the organics, they have lower densities.
00:37:20
Speaker
So there's less competition between the birds.
00:37:23
Speaker
And, of course, the value of the egg is higher.
00:37:25
Speaker
So the farmer is trying more to get really every egg out of the chicken.
00:37:31
Speaker
But it's not unusual now to get 500 eggs plus on UK farm in free-range conditions.
00:37:37
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:37:37
Speaker
We have a decal white 500 egg club.
00:37:41
Speaker
And that is just growing all the time.
00:37:42
Speaker
There's more and more people getting that poster on the wall in their hen house with...
00:37:48
Speaker
I've achieved 500 eggs.
00:37:50
Speaker
We need to get some farmers on here.
00:37:51
Speaker
And then when we've got the first 600, we're getting you guys back.
00:37:55
Speaker
Yeah, lovely.
00:37:56
Speaker
And indeed, we made a promise 15 years ago.
00:37:58
Speaker
I'm very happy that we kept a promise that by 2020, there will be flocks producing 500 eggs in 100 weeks.
00:38:05
Speaker
And the good news is the first ones were already there in 2016 or 2017.
00:38:08
Speaker
So make me a promise.
00:38:11
Speaker
For a year.
00:38:12
Speaker
First quality eggs, I think.
00:38:14
Speaker
Well, that's already been done, surely.
00:38:16
Speaker
That is where we're aiming at at the moment.
00:38:20
Speaker
And we're seeing that.
00:38:21
Speaker
And that's one of the other myths about white egg production is that somehow the seconds levels are higher.
00:38:27
Speaker
Well, that's just not there in the data.
00:38:30
Speaker
It's just from the flocks that I've seen there, there is just not there in the data.
00:38:35
Speaker
It's not there.
00:38:36
Speaker
No, breaking strength of a white egg is better than former brown.
00:38:39
Speaker
So there's a lot of perception and also the dirtiness because in general, the gut health of a white is better than for a brown as well.
00:38:47
Speaker
So there's less necrotic enteritis and so on and so on and so on.
00:38:50
Speaker
It's a more resilient birth and therefore the future, I believe, in a strong future for the whites.
00:38:57
Speaker
Just expand on that slightly because I think what you're touching on is...
00:39:04
Speaker
a deeper sort of degree of science rather than perhaps I can hear the naysayers just saying this is all anecdote this is all just you know hearsay and waffle but when you start talking about actual disease resistance what evidence is there to sort of back that up?
00:39:18
Speaker
So, well, one of the evidences is look at the mortality.
00:39:22
Speaker
The average mortality of a white flock depleted at 100 weeks is still lower compared to a brown flock depleted at 85 weeks.
00:39:29
Speaker
And all the data is out there.
00:39:32
Speaker
So that is something that the bird is more resilient.
00:39:36
Speaker
And gut health is a big part of that, related to that.
00:39:40
Speaker
better capable to cope with the diets of the future.
00:39:46
Speaker
So, well, whether it's part of luck, whether it's, yeah, genetically, of course, don't forget the birds are different.
00:39:53
Speaker
So they are already genetically apart from each other more than 500 years.
00:39:57
Speaker
Compare that to a broiler and a brown chicken.
00:40:00
Speaker
They are only apart from each other less than 200 years.
00:40:03
Speaker
So they do are different birds and they respond also different to the breeding program.
00:40:08
Speaker
And of course, yes, as Nick already touched upon with the browns, there is less variation because they have a common ancestor dating less than 100 years ago.
00:40:17
Speaker
So there's greater variation in white.
00:40:19
Speaker
Yes.
00:40:19
Speaker
So does that mean there's greater potential still to be exploited in white?
00:40:22
Speaker
At least that's what we observe with breeding, that they respond...
00:40:26
Speaker
Better?
00:40:26
Speaker
Because I was going to ask you whether or not our 500 and north figure is about producers, farmers adapting and getting better at managing the same bird, or it's better
00:40:43
Speaker
Both happening concurrently.
00:40:44
Speaker
The bird is getting better and the farms are getting better as well.
00:40:46
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:40:47
Speaker
But don't forget that managing a white bird, we, our colleague back home always says, Alex Janssen always says, all my farmers, they have an easy life because having the white birds, they have a lot of time for themselves.
00:41:01
Speaker
You don't need to spend a lot of time collecting Florex, collecting Systemax.
00:41:06
Speaker
But it's also just moving around the shed.
00:41:07
Speaker
If anyone hasn't had an experience of being in the house with white birds versus brown, brown birds will flock to your feet.
00:41:14
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:41:14
Speaker
They're very curious birds.
00:41:16
Speaker
And that's part of the problem.
00:41:17
Speaker
It's like a force field around you and they just move.
00:41:19
Speaker
The curiosity of a brown bird.
00:41:21
Speaker
That is part of the problem.
00:41:22
Speaker
Why they also show higher mortalities.
00:41:24
Speaker
Because there's more packing, there's more cannibalistic behavior among each other, because they are much more interested also in each other.
00:41:31
Speaker
And also the difference in the feather coffers.
00:41:33
Speaker
So the fluff is white, while the top feather is all brown or reddish.
00:41:37
Speaker
When the white feather sticks out, they're like, hey, what is it?
00:41:40
Speaker
Pop!
00:41:41
Speaker
And that's where feather packing also starts with.
00:41:43
Speaker
So, and that is, of course... Not a problem with the whites.
00:41:46
Speaker
No, it's... And that's... When you look at some of the 100-week-old flocks, look at their feather cover.
00:41:52
Speaker
It's just like... They're 30-week-old ladies.
00:41:56
Speaker
It's... They're still all there.
00:41:58
Speaker
Beautiful, healthy feather cover is still on it.
00:42:00
Speaker
So... Well, our top sales guy, Peter.
00:42:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:03
Speaker
Peter wants whitebirds to succeed because he loves to go to a farm and talk to the farmer about the football or his latest holiday or that kind of thing and not sit down and discuss smothering or pecking or that kind of thing.
00:42:19
Speaker
With a whitebird, he goes along and, yeah, how are the birds?
00:42:22
Speaker
Oh, yeah, they're still at 98%.
00:42:23
Speaker
Yeah, the mortality is still very, very low.
00:42:25
Speaker
Cup of tea.
00:42:26
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:42:28
Speaker
Do you see the Chelsea game at the weekend?
00:42:30
Speaker
That's what he wants to do.
00:42:31
Speaker
If we're debunking myths, if we're talking about things that are often contested, one of the behaviors that might get pointed to is that they're flighty, that they are skittish.
00:42:43
Speaker
No, they make better use of the system.
00:42:45
Speaker
And that is part of the benefit.
00:42:46
Speaker
There's always more social distance often between the birds, but they make much better use of especially the aviary systems.
00:42:54
Speaker
But also there was the myth that white birds would not go out to the range.
00:42:57
Speaker
Well, we've seen ranges full of white birds.
00:43:01
Speaker
But a lot depends, of course, on the attractiveness on the range.
00:43:04
Speaker
Because don't forget, chickens, whether they're white or brown, they all come from a jungle fowl.
00:43:09
Speaker
And the name already says it, jungle fowl.
00:43:12
Speaker
They like protection.
00:43:13
Speaker
They like very good, well-designed ranges.
00:43:16
Speaker
And that is very important to get the birds outside.
00:43:21
Speaker
whether it's tree cover or whether it's shrubs, shelters anything they want to climb in my experience they want to go up they're in the roofs of the poultry sheds unlike the browns it's also a lighter bird they're better able to navigate through the complex systems they're a bit more of a ninja yeah right thanks Nick ninja birds you'll remember that one that's going on the write-up yeah
00:43:48
Speaker
And part of that is because they are indeed different.
00:43:52
Speaker
Part of it is indeed luck because of the behavior.
00:43:56
Speaker
Because the Browns are the whites.
00:43:57
Speaker
We bred them with the same philosophy in mind.
00:44:00
Speaker
And the Browns are also making massive progress.
00:44:03
Speaker
Put the clock back 10 years ago.
00:44:05
Speaker
They were only kept in the early 70s, 72, 74 weeks, etc.
00:44:09
Speaker
And they also are on the increase.
00:44:12
Speaker
But the whites, there is the gap, and the gap is there to stay.
00:44:15
Speaker
So that is what continuously, I think as long as I will be breeding chickens, they will stay ahead of the game and therefore ticking all those sustainability boxes.
Future Outlook on Sustainable Practices
00:44:25
Speaker
And yeah, there's only one planet, and that's the definition of sustainability.
00:44:30
Speaker
Something like the Bovens Brown, people are keeping to 90 weeks now.
00:44:32
Speaker
Oh, absolutely.
00:44:33
Speaker
And it used to be 76 or less.
00:44:37
Speaker
and they are keeping them to 90.
00:44:38
Speaker
Obviously the benefit with the white is 100, 105 weeks and not, you know, that's a big difference.
00:44:46
Speaker
Guys, thank you so much.
00:44:48
Speaker
I think, Tern, your words are ringing in my ears.
00:44:51
Speaker
There's only one planet.
00:44:52
Speaker
Yeah, there's only one planet and we need to give it in a good shape to the next generation because what is the global definition of sustainability?
00:45:01
Speaker
We need to fulfill the needs that we have today, but we must make sure that we safeguard the needs of the future generation.
Conclusion and Acknowledgments
00:45:08
Speaker
And that is something that making such a simple decision by moving to white, we can help a little bit to protect our planet and...
00:45:16
Speaker
deal better with the resources which we have today.
00:45:20
Speaker
Fern van der Brak, Nick Bailey, thank you both.
00:45:24
Speaker
Thank you, Tom.
00:45:24
Speaker
Fantastic.
00:45:26
Speaker
And thank you for listening.
00:45:27
Speaker
That's been the Sustainability Hub podcast.
00:45:30
Speaker
My name is Tom Willings and another thanks to our sponsors, to Elanco, Alltech, UK Agritech Centre, Moypark, Aviagen and Trou Nutrition.
00:45:42
Speaker
And of course, to Hendrix Genetics and my guests today, Tern and Nick.
00:45:50
Speaker
Thank you.