Egg Shortage in France

I must admit I hadn't noticed. Someone on Facebook pointed out to me that there had been a flurry of news reports about egg shortages in France, and the supermarket shelves were looking a bit bare. So next time I was in the supermarket I checked, and sure enough, there were obvious gaps. So what is it all about? France is Europe's biggest egg producer, and French people eat a lot of eggs (more than 4 each per week, and that figure has been increasing over the past few years)*. So that's one reason -- supply is not keeping up with demand, especially while we have bird flu doing the rounds (which has reduced production by about 4%).

Apparently, since the beginning of the year, demand has outstripped supply by 13%. Last year France produced more than 15 billion eggs, and the normal level of supply is about 2% less than demand. These days eggs are seen as an economical and ecologically sustainable alternative to meat or fish. But also influencing the market are changing ideas on cholesterol (it's OK to eat eggs again), the fashion for high protein diets (promoted particularly by sports nutritionists and scientist influencers such as Jessie Inchauspé the Glucose Goddess advocating savoury breakfasts), and how eggs lend themselves to quick and simple preparation.

 

How to decode your egg stamp: the top line is the best by date (dd/mm), 28 days after laying; the bottom line indicates how the hens live, with a number 0-3 (this one is 1, so this is a free range egg), then the country code (FR for France), then the département (county) code (02 is Aisne).

In order to meet this increased demand we will need a million more hens, and 300 more egg farms. French egg farms have on average flocks of 16 000 hens, but nobody wants to live next door to an egg farm, so permission to establish new farms takes time. French consumers want French produced eggs, preferably organic, Label Rouge and/or free range (Fr. élevée en plein air) ie the stamps on the eggs should include codes 0 or 1, not 2 (barn) or 3 (caged). For the moment France is making do with importing 4% of eggs in the market from Spain, Poland and the Netherlands, where much bigger egg farms are permitted, and French consumers are dubious about traceability.

 

Eggs at one of my local supermarkets on Tuesday.

 

*Australians eat even more eggs per capita than the French, but consumption is declining slightly. Average annual consumption in Australia is 259 eggs per person, in France it is 226 eggs per person.