A new type of laying hen has finally come to roost in Manitoba.
More than 40,000 hens are now laying eggs exclusively for processors, who crack them to make dried and liquid bulk products.
By summer, they’ll be joined by another 100,000 hens for the processing market, said Harold Froese, chair of Manitoba Egg Producers.
The province is running a Grow for Processing program almost five years after it first experimented with the idea.
Froese said producers want to replace the hundreds of thousands of dozen eggs imported each week by a Winnipeg processor.
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The Grow for Processing program is a good start toward that goal, he said.
Canadian Inovatech, which makes dried and liquid egg products, and extracts enzymes from eggs, buys 20,000 to 22,000 boxes of eggs each week from the United States because there are not enough eggs produced in Canada to meet its needs.
Under the program, Manitoba producers receive the world market price for eggs, which can be considerably lower than the domestic price. But they don’t have to buy quota to produce eggs for the processor. Producers see the program as a way to expand the industry beyond the stable supply required by Canadians.
