The National Chicken Council (NCC) has again requested that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allow non-settable broiler hatching eggs to be consigned from hatcheries to off-line breaking plants to produce pasteurized liquid products. The 2009 Final Rule on Salmonella in Eggs mandated storage of all eggs at 45F within 36 hours of lay. This is realistic for table eggs but temperatures lower than 65F will kill embryos.
It is estimated that 63 million broiler breeder hens would collectively produce 1,000 tons of liquid per week based on current production parameters (80% hen/day; 5% rejects; 40lb edible yield per case).
CHICK-NEWS supported a waiver of the requirement for refrigeration in a posting on February 13th 2023 during the second year of the ongoing HPAI epornitic. Due to an approximate 15 million reduction in the population of laying hens the U.S. was importing breaking stock while the broiler industry was obliged to dump or render reject eggs.
The FDA should recognize the level of wastage and the financial cost to integrators arising from the 2009 requirement for storage at 45F. It is illogical
to allow eggs from flocks identified as SE-environmental positive to be broken and their contents pasteurized but to exclude reject broiler eggs from the breaking-stock supply. In the interest of sustainability and economic wellbeing, the intransigence maintained by the FDA should now be reversed after 16 years of waste.