Derbyshire trading standards launches egg crackdown

8th March 2010, 10:21am

Egg producers across the county are being warned to stick to the law after an investigation by Derbyshire County Council.

During the recent crackdown trading standards officers checked 50 eggs – including nine described as being from caged birds, 39 claiming to be free-range, one barn raised and one organic.

Of those, 19 eggs – almost 40% of those tested – failed.

Two were falsely described as free-range and one was falsely described as being from barn raised hens when they were actually from caged birds.

Officers also found that 11 of the eggs were wrongly labelled, four did not meet quality standards and two were not the required weight under the Food Safety Act.

Councillor Carol Hart, the county council's Cabinet Member for Communities, said: "Shoppers have a right to know what they are buying. Eggs are part of our staple diet and it's important that people know they are buying eggs that are good quality, correctly labelled and the right weight.

"On an even more serious note, eggs that are not labelled correctly would be untraceable in the event of a health scare, such as a salmonella outbreak."

Various techniques were used to test the eggs including shining an ultra-violet light to show up marks on the shells of eggs claiming to be free-range which proved they were laid in cages.

A light was also used to test their quality by checking the size of the air space – older eggs have bigger air spaces.

Councillor Hart added: "Egg fraud is a big business across the country. Free-range eggs are much more expensive than cage-produced ones and it is important to protect well-run businesses that describe their products correctly from fraudulent competitors."

As a result of the investigation, trading standards officers issued advice to help nine businesses in Derbyshire stick to the law.

Other cases in Derbyshire have been referred to the Egg Marketing Inspectorate, part of the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Derbyshire is home to 857 egg producers. Nationally, the egg industry in the UK is estimated to be worth £1 billion.

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