American Egg Board President and CEO Emily Metz is on a mission to expand the reach of U.S. egg farmers and processors across the globe and make international trade do for her industry what it’s done for dairy and pork – boost sales and profits.
American eggs are in just about every home in America, whether they’re in cardboard cartons or ingredients in mayonnaise and salad dressing, but the farmers who produce them and the companies that process them into liquid or dried ingredients deserve more, says Metz. They deserve to have their products in refrigerators around the globe.
The U.S. exported about 5.5% of the roughly 84 billion eggs it produced in 2013, but the numbers have mostly fallen since then. Exports sometimes spike in times of extraordinary need from abroad when bird flu hits and overseas flocks are destroyed, but U.S. shipments overseas dropped to their lowest level in more than a decade last year – about 2.1% of production.
And that means U.S. producers are walking away from a lot of business and leaving it to producers in other countries who don’t have the reputation for safety and efficiency that the U.S. does, Metz told Agri-Pulse in an interview.
During a recent USDA trade mission to the United Arab Emirates. importers would stress to Metz that they would love to have access to U.S. egg products, she said. Company leaders in Dubai explained that they were buying their egg products from places like Ukraine and Germany and quality was inconsistent.
“When you're making a baked good, you can't have that,” she said. “It messes up your whole system. Our U.S. egg products – because of how fastidious we are about drying them or separating them into liquid – they perform incredibly consistently and so people want them and are willing to pay a premium for them. It’s our opportunity that's lost right now and we need to try to help our producers understand the value of that opportunity.”
Emily Metz, American Egg BoardMetz pointed out the massive success U.S. pork and dairy producers have had selling their products overseas and stressed there’s no reason it shouldn’t be the same for eggs.
“The opportunity is equally huge, both in terms of bringing back on-farm value for our producers, but also in terms of managing and diversifying risks,” she said. “I mean, we quite literally have all of our eggs in one basket. And it's just not a good strategy. And so we have to start to diversify.”
After all, the American Egg Board exists to maintain and expand domestic and foreign markets and uses for eggs and egg products. The checkoff program is funded by a mandatory assessment of 10 cents per 30-dozen case of eggs sold, totaling about $20 million annually, according to USDA’s AMS.
The U.S. now exports about 25% of its pork, according to the National Pork Producers Council. Last year, the dairy sector exported 18% of its production, the U.S. Dairy Export Council says.
Metz said she’s enjoyed going on the USDA trade missions, which have have reinforced her drive to globalize the market for U.S. eggs and egg products, but the American Egg Board – together with the help of the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council – is taking the effort to the next level this month.
After USDA's Southeast Asia mission, Metz will be heading to Japan and South Korea, taking along egg industry representatives to meet buyers and help cement new business relationships.
Nine egg producers from the 36 farms on AEB's board directors will accompany Metz on the Nov. 6-11 trip through South Korea and Japan, but she says she expects the benefits will be spread much further through the industry.
“The goal is … to form lasting relationships in those two countries,” she said, but also stressed that she expects those who go will become “ambassadors for this program that we're building at AEB to increase our exports long term” and share what they learn with others.
Metz, who is already planning trips to take U.S. egg and egg product producers to the Philippines and Mexico year, says her biggest challenge is getting American farmers and processors to expand their horizons beyond the relatively secure domestic market that they already dominate.
"One of the biggest challenges that the egg industry faces right now is truthfully, its producer,” she said. “So we really need to build producer awareness of the power that increasing the percentage of eggs … going into the export market can have on transforming our industry for the future. Look at what exports have done to the pork industry, to the dairy industry.”
Jamey Payne, sales and marketing director for the New York-based Kreher Family Farms, a farm represented on AEB's board, will be going to Japan and South Korea with Metz later this month. The operation will be celebrating its centennial next year and Payne said he’s excited about finding new markets for the company’s eggs.
“We're missing the boat there, quite literally, in terms of where the opportunities lie,” he told Agri-Pulse.
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While the U.S. does export eggs and egg products, much of that trade is restricted to taking advantage of spikes in demand when overseas buyers are desperate, says Ross Dean, vice president for sales and marketing at Iowa-based Versova.
Dean, who will also be on the American Egg Board trip to South Korea and Japan, says U.S. producers need to foster long-term relationships with buyers to create stable and long-lasting business.
“A lot of export business previously has been opportunistic, because of some of the issues with bird flu and things that are going around the globe today,” said Dean. “My message would be, let's figure out how we can make exports more consistent (and) expand on that … business.“
That’s why he’s says he is enthusiastic about planned excursions during the trip to Japanese and South Korean food manufacturers that need eggs and egg products as well as retailers there that sell the final products.
“People buy from people,” Dean stressed. “It's invaluable to have those face-to- face meetings and the big part of the trip that I'm looking forward to.”
One stop will be the Ifuji Sangyo company, which he says processes about 1.3 billion eggs a year.
“They do liquid, frozen and processed eggs,” Dean said. “So, seeing what they're doing with those products, and then they would then be selling to companies like Costco and other retailers.”
Ifuji Sangyo processes about 10% of total Japanese egg production and the company has imported about 250 metric tons of U.S. eggs so far this year, according to an AEB spokesman.
Making a connection with buyers at companies like Ifuji Sangyo is intrinsic to doing business overseas, says USA Poultry and Egg Export Council President and CEO Greg Tyler.
There is plenty of demand, said Tyler, who will be going for the South Korea portion of the trip, but it is imperative that importers “meet the egg processors from the United States firsthand so they can start developing these relationships and the trust, which a lot of Asian markets require. They want to build long-term relationships and I think (Metz) is trying to start that process for some of these egg processors that really have not gotten into exports.”
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