Business & Personal Finance

Over the past few months, over half a billion eggs in the United States have been recalled due to concerns over salmonella contamination. 

The number is so astronomical that I felt I had to have a closer look. If half a billion eggs could be recalled, then just how many eggs are produced?  It was something I had never thought about before, but I decided it was about time I did.

FIrst I checked the United States Department of Agriculture statistics. They have a Chicken and Eggs 2009 Summary which indicates that over 90,000,000,000 (90 billion) eggs were produced in that country in 2009. 

Iowa was the top egg producing State as of 2008, and the top two egg producing companies as of 2008 were Cal-Maine and Rose Acre Farms, each with almost 23 million laying hens in production (the companies initially involved in the recall were Wright County Egg, of Galt, Iowa, and Hillandale farms, also of Iowa).

For Canadian egg statistics, I looked at Poultry and Egg Statistics, put out by Statistics Canada. It indicates that in Canada in 2009, egg production was 620.3 million dozen, or almost 7.5 billion eggs.

Over half the eggs in Canada are produced in Ontario (234.3 million dozen in 2009) and Quebec (107.6 million dozen in 2009).

The industry has had quite a bit of bad press lately – not just from tainted eggs, but from the treatment of its animals.

Business and Company Resource Centre, one of the online databases to which the library subscribes, has a report on the chicken egg industry. About Rose Acre Farms (which was not involved in the recall), it says:

"In June 2010 the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) filed suit with the Federal Trade Commission against Rose Acre Farms, the nation's second largest egg producer, to force the company to stop the company from advertising regarding its friendly and humane treatment of its animals.

Based on footage secretly taped at a Rose Acres facility, the HSUS released a statement that the conditions at the facility included "birds trapped in the wires of battery cages, unable to reach food or water, birds with broken bones and untreated, prolapsed uteruses, the mummified corpses of hens in cages with live hens, and abandoned hens that had fallen into manure pits."

It goes on to say that "As this type of bad press continued to follow the large producers, high-welfare eggs grew in popularity, such as eggs from free range hens (i.e., hens not confined to laying facilities), from hens that are antibiotic free, and from hens that have been fed particular diets that are free from certain byproducts." ("Chicken Eggs." Encyclopedia of American Industries. Online Edition. Gale, 2010. Reproduced in Business and Company Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale Group. 2010.)

As this last paragraph suggests, as the industry's bad press continues, perhaps people will continue to seek out more sanitary and humane sources for their eggs.