10.10.2011

Commission says illegal eggs could be sold for processing

An European Union ban on the sale of eggs from battery chickens to consumers will go ahead as planned from Jan. 1, 2012, but producers may be free to sell non-compliant eggs to domestic processors, said John Dalli, EU health and consumer commissioner.

But rather than forcing producers who fail to meet the deadline to destroy their eggs, the European Commission wants to let them sell them to industrial processors -- not retailers -- in their own countries.
Dalli said the compromise would ensure compliant producers get a premium price for their products and protect them from the threat of cheap imports of illegal eggs.

But he said it was still unclear whether such a compromise was compatible with EU legislation and that the Commission would work with EU governments to try to reach a solution.

The EU agreed on the battery cage ban back in 1999, but Commission figures for April 2011 showed that about 144 million laying hens -- more than a third of the EU total -- were still being kept in battery cages.