How old are store eggs

[billymcdonaldnp]

I have two books that state the average store egg from the mega ranches are 4 months old, before being packed with the julian date on the carton. I know eggs will keep fine for 6 months at 29.5 F.
Does anyone know how long today's eggs are typically held in cold storage?

 

[JetCat]

usually no longer then 3 days, but can be up to 30 but that's rare.

 

[billymcdonaldnp]

Yes, what you refer to is the julian date. But are saying you know the ranches with over 10 million hens no longer use cold storage? The date on the carton is another issue; that's after removal from very cold storage, then packing. That is the packing date in the carton; 30 days is the law.

 

[JetCat]

i have no idea what goes on at the farms with 10 million hens as i've never owned or even seen one, the most hens i've seen in a single house were caged hens and that's 180 thousand hens per house, it would take quiet a large farm to have 10 million hens.

each and every farm still uses refrigeration, after the egg is collected you have 3 days (this clock starts the day after the egg is laid) to wash/disinfect and have in refrigeration and 30 days to have them processed and out to the distributor BUT most ( nobody can say for sure what happens at each and every farm though) of the large caged farms are running and processing continuously and packaged within hours of being laid, they do then go into refrigeration but most are trucked (reefer trailers) out and are on the shelf in local stores within a few days and in some cases it could even be the same day.


just something to think on, if the farm you mentioned with 10 million hens, on average they are getting over 8 million eggs per day, even with huge warehouse sized cold storage it doesn't take long to run out of space if you're holding that quantity of eggs for any length of time.

 

[Eps32]

They can be up to 45 days old at times