It is very unlikely that eggs sold in Canadian stores would contain the type of repackaged eggs that have given the American industry a black public eye, says an official.
“There’s no need,” said Canadian Egg Marketing Agency chief executive officer Neil Currie. “There are alternatives (here) which don’t cost the graders anything.”
An American television news program recently revealed that a major United States egg company has been taking egg containers that have passed their “best before” date, washing the eggs, and putting them in new containers with new best-before dates. Some of the eggs were almost a month old when they were repackaged.
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Studies show that older eggs can contain more bacteria than fresh eggs, including the poisonous salmonella bacteria.
Currie said best-before date repackaging is unlikely to happen in Canada because the system here doesn’t penalize people for returning old eggs.
The egg marketing agency buys back expired product, pasteurizes it and sends it to industrial processing. The graders receive a good price for the eggs, so they are not tempted to repackage them.
But in the U.S., if a retailer sends back eggs with an expired date, the egg seller has to either heavily discount the eggs by selling them to an industrial processor, or repackage them and pretend they’re new.
The American agriculture department has said it will not allow companies that do this to use the USDA shield on their egg cartons.
Currie said the company that Dateline NBC caught is massive.
But most Canadian egg operations are much smaller, and they make smaller shipments more often, rather than huge shipments occasionally.
The supply management system also helps, Currie said, because it keeps egg suppliers conscious of retail inventories.
Currie said the Canadian egg industry is confident it offers safe food. But he said producers worry when they see American news reports about problems in their industry.
“Canadians see U.S. media quite frequently and just jump to the conclusion that (it affects) all North America.”
Some worried consumers have called the agency, but “our concern is the consumers who see (programs like Dateline NBC) but don’t ask.”
