The British Egg Industry Council (BEIC) has decided to delay the introduction of on-farm stamping for Lion free range and organic egg producers by six months.
But one major packer – Noble Foods – says it is sticking to the original deadline. And Stonegate says it hopes to have stamping equipment on farm by December after working hard to overcome technical difficulties.
On-farm stamping is already compulsory for cage producers under the Lion code and was due to be adopted into the Lion code for other producers at the end of this year, but the BEIC has now decided to delay implementation of on-farm stamping for non-cage producers until the middle of 2011.
This decision was confirmed to the Ranger by BEIC chief executive Mark Williams. "At the BEIC subscribers meeting held on July 20 the decision was taken to delay the introduction of on-farm stamping for Lion non-cage egg producers until June 30 2011. This is to allow further time for smaller Lion free range and organic producers to investigate and trial equipment," he said.
Producers who supply Noble, however, will be stamping on farm by the end of this year. The company’s technical director, Andrew Joret, told the Ranger that the company was still aiming for the original deadline set by BEIC."We are still working to the end of December. We have always said that it would be the end of this year and that is what we are aiming to achieve," he said. He said there were no problems on units with packers. Any potential problems would arise on farms using hand collection or where there were a number of small sheds.
He said the company had been conducting trials to overcome any problems and it was still hoping to meet the original December deadline, although the decision by BEIC would allow it to go beyond December if necessary.
Stonegate was not in favour of the original Lion decision to insist upon on-farm stamping for free rage egg producers, although Richard Kempsey said that the company had accepted the vote of Lion subscribers. "We were not in favour but we have to accept the majority decision. We are members of the BEIC and we have to abide by the decision."
Richard said that the company had, however, encountered technical difficulties in trying to source equipment suitable for its Colombian Black Tail producers.
"We have had severe technical difficulties getting equipment that is economic and that physically works for our small Colombian Black Tail units – small manual type stampers and also small conveyor type stampers. We think we are there now. We have done a lot of R and D on it with two manufacturers. We think we are there in terms of the spec of the equipment and our initial take is that we will put this out on farm between October and December. We make no guarantees that we will make the end of the year because of the manufacturing side but we are not looking to any long term delay beyond the end of the year," he said.
Richard said it was nice that the BEIC extension until June was available, but Stonegate had not backed away from its responsibilities. "We have done the R and D in the background. That R and D has now borne fruit and we think we are now in the final stages of farm trials."
Fridays told the Ranger that it would go along with the latest decision of the BEIC and aim for the deadline of June next year.
Oakland Farm Eggs has been making use of on-farm stamping for some time. It became the first packer to commit to stamping all eggs on farm and won recognition for its work when Elwyn Griffiths collected the Breakthrough of the Year award at the BFREPA conference in 2008. Oakland believes that on-farm stamping is something that enables it to provide full traceability of every egg passing through the packing centre. It says it helps maintain consumer confidence in the egg industry.
When the Lion code subscribers voted to introduce on-farm egg stamping at a meeting in September last year it was seen as one of the initiatives being undertaken by the industry to counter egg fraud. When in March this year conman Keith Owen was jailed for his part in a £100 million fraud involving Heart of England Eggs near Bromsgrove, the BEIC said it was taking a number of measures to tackle fraudsters.
The measures included the introduction of on-farm stamping and improvements to the Lion code to improve security - including unannounced audits of all Lion packing stations and better traceability through a new database to track eggs throughout the system.
The latest decision to delay the deadline for non-cage producers comes at a time when questions are being asked about whether free range egg producers should be required to carry out on-farm stamping at all.
Even though it supported the original decision, BFREPA has been undertaking a survey amongst it members to ascertain their current views on the issue.
More than two thirds of BFREPA members who took part in a survey conducted by the association have said they are opposed to on-farm stamping.
The number of members who took part in the survey was disappointingly low – just eight per cent of the membership responded to the association’s questionnaire, but those who did respond raised a number of issues about on-farm stamping.
"I am disappointed with the overall response to the survey, although those who did take part made their feelings about on-farm stamping very clear," said BFREPA chairman John Retson. "The majority indicated that they were against on-farm stamping and some members raised some very interesting points that we should consider."
The results of the survey will be discussed at the October meeting of the BFREPA council. John said that the council would need to consider whether the response provided the association with sufficient support and grounds for approaching BEIC again about the issue.
The BEIC has already delayed implementation of on-farm stamping for non-cage producers by six months. John said the council would consider whether it could ask BEIC to extend the delay or scrap on-farm stamping for free range farmers completely.
Although the BFREPA council supported last year’s announcement that on-farm stamping would be introduced as a requirement of the Lion code, a number of free range egg producers have since raised concerns about the move.
Questions have been asked about the necessity to impose on-farm stamping on free range production. Many producers are also concerned about the extra costs placed on them by having to stamp on farm. BFREPA decided to seek the views of members on the issue, and questionnaires were sent out with the July edition of the Ranger. The association has now started to analyse the responses.
Some 69 per cent of members who took part in the survey indicated that they disagreed with on-farm stamping.
The responses to the BFREPA questionnaire suggest that, as expected, those with smaller flocks in mobile or smaller houses are the ones most opposed to on-farm stamping. However, there are producers with larger flocks who are also opposed. At the same time, some smaller producers express their support for on-farm stamping in their responses. Of the 31 per cent of respondents who supported on-farm stamping, 92 per cent were already stamping on farm. Just 17 per cent of opponents were already stamping.
Producers were asked to cite possible difficulties with on-farm stamping. Many of the difficulties raised involved cost – the cost of equipment and consumables, the cost of extra labour and the cost of maintenance and break-downs. Other producers mentioned problems with ink smearing, downgraded eggs for poor stamping and difficulties with equipment in cold weather.
Lion code subscribers voted to introduce on-farm egg stamping at a meeting in September last year. The requirement came into force in December last year for cage producers and was due to come into force in December this year for other producers. BEIC has now delayed its introduction for free range and organic producers for six months. It says it wants to give smaller producers more time to trial equipment.
It is recognised that on-farm stamping presents a bigger problem for smaller producers who use manual packing systems. Free range producer John Widdowson was involved in early trials with hand stamping, and he told the Ranger that it was unrealistic to expect egg producers to take on the inevitable increase in labour costs at a time when the industry was struggling from the impact of lower producer prices and increased feed costs. John said he had taken part in trials when the British Egg Industry Council was first considering on-farm stamping. He used a 30-egg stamper and, he says, he was able to arrive at some very detailed timings to ascertain how much extra work would be involved in stamping on farm.
"We were selected as a farm that hand packed eggs. We were asked to trial a 30-egg stamper and we did so," said John. "The operation went easier than I anticipated but the bottom line was that it added a minimum of 20 per cent extra to labour. I used my best egg picker and I used a good young flock of birds so that we had optimum conditions for egg collecting. We timed the same girl in the same shed not stamping, then the same girl in the same shed stamping. It was done properly and we saw a 20 per cent increase in labour," said John.
"At any time that would be difficult to find – and it will have to be found by the producer. Packers might be talking about supplying equipment and consumables but we will have to fund the extra labour. It could not have come at a worse time. The sector is on its knees. If we carry on with these low egg prices and increased feed costs a lot of producers won’t be in business in 12 months time. To ask them to increase labour by 20 per cent at the moment, I just don’t see how it can be done."
John also raised doubts about whether on-farm stamping would have the desired effect of preventing potential egg fraud. On-farm stamping was highlighted by BEIC as one of the measures it was taking to prevent future egg fraud following the discovery of a £100 million fraud involving Heart of England Eggs near Bromsgrove. Conman Keith Owen was jailed for the fraud in March this year.
John said, "Will it actually stop the kind of fraud that has happened in the past? It wouldn’t have prevented what went on in the West Midlands when lorry loads of unmarked eggs came in from the continent. It is a good story to help reassure consumers about confidence in the product – and I am all for that – but it has got to be affordable for the industry, and quite frankly it is not affordable."
One longstanding critic of on-farm stamping for free range producers has been John Campbell of Glenrath Eggs. He has long said that on-farm stamping should be used solely for cage production and that view has not changed.
"It was introduced after the Heart of England case came to light. In my opinion it was completely unnecessary. I said it then and I have said it all along. We proposed at Glenrath that cage eggs should be all stamped. We are still of that opinion because it is cage eggs that are used for fraud. No-one is going to be selling free range eggs as anything other than free range eggs. It’s a complete and utter waste of money," he said.
Members of the BFREPA council will consider all points of view when they discuss the issue at their October meeting.
