Gulf News

Fowl play: Bird flu takes toll on UK egg supply

UK scrambles to meet growing demand for chicken, egg and turkey

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Some British supermarke­ts have started to ration customers’ purchase of eggs after supplies were disrupted by avian flu.

Britain is facing its largesteve­r outbreak of bird flu and is seeing rapid escalation in the number of cases on commercial farms, impacting egg supply and also raising fears of a shortage of turkeys and chickens for the Christmas table.

Asda, Britain’s third largest grocer after market leader Tesco and Sainsbury’s, is limiting customers to two boxes of eggs each. While avian flu has disrupted the supply of some egg ranges, retailers are experts at managing supply chains and are working hard to minimise impact on customers,” Andrew Opie, director of food and sustainabi­lity at the British Retail Consortium which represents British supermarke­ts, said.

“Some stores have introduced temporary limits on the number of boxes customers can buy to ensure availabili­ty for everyone,” he added.

A spokespers­on for Sainsbury’s said it was “experienci­ng some supply challenges with eggs”.

The spokespers­on said the group had not introduced purchase limits but was having to temporaril­y source some eggs from Italy.

The British Free Range Egg Producers Associatio­n (BFREPA) said the increased cost of producing eggs since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was another factor impacting supply.

“Farmers are basically losing money because the price that’s being paid in the supermarke­t isn’t being passed back down the supply chain to farmers,” a BFREPA spokespers­on said.

“So a huge number of them are losing a significan­t amount of money and can’t afford to produce eggs any more,” they said, noting the industry is down 743,350 layers this season.

Annual numbers

Last week the UK’s chief veterinary officer Christine Middlemiss played down the threat to Christmas poultry supplies from bird flu.

She told BBC radio Britain slaughters about 1 billion birds a year, while so far in the current outbreak 2.3 million birds had either died or been culled, so a small number in terms of overall annual production.

2.3m

Birds have either died or been culled because of bird flu

2

Number of boxes of eggs allowed per customer in stores

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