Free-range eggs just flu off shelves
SALES of eggs labelled free range are to be banned in stores from tomorrow because of avian flu.
Free-range hens have had to be kept indoors since the outbreak began in November.
Now the Government has declared the 16-week grace period allowed for free-range sales is over.
Those eggs must now be marketed as barn eggs.
Farmers had hoped the order could be lifted this month, but there have been new outbreaks of the disease in the past week.
The British Retail Consortium said supermarkets would be providing signs to explain the change to shoppers.
But it added: “When the current measures are lifted, eggs will go back to being free-range”.