Broiler industry wants FDA to allow use of surplus eggs

With bird flu shrinking the nation’s egg supply, the National Chicken Council is asking FDA to change its rules and let broiler producers send their surplus eggs for breaking.

NCC submitted a petition to the agency Thursday requesting that it “reverse or modify an Obama-era regulation that forces the broiler industry … to discard perfectly nutritious and safe eggs.”

FDA and USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service rejected NCC petitions in 2023 seeking similar relief.

“With government risk assessments affirming their safety, and the fact that surplus broiler hatching eggs would be pasteurized (cooked), we respectfully request FDA to immediately exercise its enforcement discretion to allow these eggs to be sent for breaking, helping to ease costs and inflationary pressures for consumers,” said Ashley Peterson, NCC’s senior vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs.

“Granting NCC’s request would release almost 400 million eggs into the egg breaking supply each year,” NCC said. This would prevent “the much-coveted table eggs from having to be used as ingredients in items such as salad dressings, bread, cake mix, pasta, pancake mix, mayonnaise, ice cream, pie crusts, sauces, and many other everyday food products.”

In rejecting the previous petition, FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition said in June 2023 that allowing use of the excess eggs from broiler operations “would not maintain the same level of public health protection as the egg safety rule.”

That rule “requires shell eggs destined for processing as egg products, including surplus broiler eggs sent for breaking, to be refrigerated at 45°F or lower ambient temperature beginning 36 hours after lay.”

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FSIS also denied a petition from NCC asking the service to coordinate with FDA to exempt broiler hatching eggs from the table egg rule. FDA and FSIS share regulation of eggs.

In a press release issued Thursday, NCC said “the refrigeration requirement is unnecessary for broiler hatching eggs since breakers already pasteurize egg products and are held to the same standard as table eggs.”

United Egg Producers could not immediately be reached for comment. UEP opposed the 2023 petition.

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