US is on egg hunt in Europe to ease prices at home

Germany, Italy, Poland and Sweden are among the nations the US Department of Agriculture approached to address the shortage brought on by a bird flu outbreak, according to European industry groups

- SCHOENEICHE

The US government is on a global egg hunt, seeking surplus exports from countries in Europe and elsewhere to ease a severe shortage that has caused egg prices at grocery stores to hit record highs. Germany, Italy, Poland and Sweden are among the nations the US Department of Agriculture approached to address the shortage brought on by a bird flu outbreak, according to European industry groups. Supplying Americans with eggs would be complicated for foreign producers — and not because of political tensions over the myriad trans-Atlantic tariffs President Donald Trump has imposed or threatened to impose on his nation’s top trading partners. Even if they were eager to share, European countries don’t have many surplus eggs because of their own avian flu outbreaks or the growing domestic demand ahead of Easter.

One of the biggest obstacles, however, is the approach the United States takes to preventing salmonella contamination. US food safety regulations require fresh eggs to be sanitized and refrigerated before they reach shoppers in the European Union; safety standards call for Grade A eggs to be sold unwashed and without extended chilling. “These are two systems that could not be more different,” said Hans-Peter Schoneick, the president of the German Egg Association. “It is common in parts of Europe, for example, for consumers to buy eggs that still have feathers and chicken poop stuck to them. Farmer David Karisch described the simple process that gets eggs from next to autonomous of the family-owned Sababurg organic farm in Schoeneiche, a town just outside Germany’s capital: The eggs are taken from nests, placed into cartons and sold on the premises or from a refrigerated vending machine just outside the property.