Me Against Eggland's Best UPDATE #51

[greathorse]

I went to Eggland's website and in my opinion they were quite straight forward with their information. They have organic, cage free, and caged birds. They clearly stated that they have some caged. I dont necessarily agree with them that caged birds are cleaner as they stated but I am sure the person creating the information believes that. They have tried for a long time to position themselves in the market as a premium egg and have been quite successful at it. I have no issue with this it is what businesses do.

As to the vegetarian fed statement. We all know and understand that mad cow disease is spread by feeding animal protiens to cattle, sheep as well for that matter. With all of that attention many folks that were producing meat and eggs decided that it would be a wise marketing position to declare that their meats were produced with no "animal by products." In my opinion this is the term that should be used as opposed to "vegetarian fed" as there is some obvious irony in declaring an animal destined to be eaten as being a vegetarian.

My company did many studies as I am sure others did and it seemed like veg fed resonated better that "no animal by products".

I have no issue with eating a chicken that runs around and eats bugs etc and I am sure very few others do. There are folks and I am one of them that object to chickens being fed offal, feathers and simply any other form of protein that is low cost and available. This veg fed statement is designed to address this concern and there is a small ( in terms of space) opportunity to make this statement on a label and as a result this vegetarian fed statement is the one that has caught on and is commonly used.

This statement now commonly declares that a product is fed with no antibiotics, hormones etc. as well as fed no animal by products For some reason in the natural and organic channel this term veg fed is somewhat all incompassing.

 

[PortageGirl]

Quote:
+1

I agree with this post.

+2

Their reply was reasonable and courteous. I think you have some valid points, but so do they.

 

[mdbokc]

Yep, I thought Eggland's response was a surprisingly good one.

Add me as in agreement with post #64 too. Interesting subject though, as Eggland's was what we bought before having our own egg supply.

 

[greathorse]

Yes good marketers and a decent product. If I buy eggs from a supermarket it is my choice after organic or cage free. If I eat a totally conventionally grown egg I will buy their's not sure why but I do.

 

[greathorse]

Example: can any of us currently guarantee our birds are free from Salmonella? Eggland can because they vaccinate.

Not so sure they can promise salmonella free either. I would not think that is totally true.

Edited to ask..... If one copies a bit of a post and wants to have it in a box so to speak how do we do that? I think I managed once and have not been able to accomplish it since.

 

[silkiechicken]

Quote:
Why would it be harder to absorb? Either way your body is "making" what we call vit D. When you eat it or get exposed to sun, you aren't directly getting it, it is a metabolic product. The sun just ramps up production.

As for minimum recommended amounts, recent research has shown that our "required" levels might be as much as 10 fold lower than ideal in terms of skin cancer, Alzheimer's disease and a few other conditions common to older people. They say 15 min in noon time sun is all it takes, IF you are below the 45th parallel. Above that, they often recommend taking a dietary supplement to meet the daily needs.

If egg companies really wanted orange yolks, they could always add marigold extract, alfala, or other additives to the diets.

I think Eggland's reply was a good one, in that they spent the time to give you a reply.

And about misrepresenting products, how many back yard raisers sell "organic" eggs if they free range their hens on soil not certified organic?



About the quote thing. You want to highlight the text you want quoted and click the "quote" button. Just one copy of the tags on each side.

["quote"] insert your text here minus the quotations in the quote [/"quote"]

 

[greenfamilyfarms]

Think about this - after looking at their website and seeing how seemingly straight-forward they are about their birds and products, they appear to be a lot better to their birds than some egg producing companies. Think of them as the lesser of the evils.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
Yes, there has been a lot of press in the past decade about the problems associated with feeding animals to animals and the public is growing more concerned about such practices, whether it is natural or not.

The USDA national organic standards do not allow mammalian or poultry by-products to be be fed to livestock. I'm not sure what else that leaves for animals except fish protein. My organic co-op does not even allow fish protein for layers.

It should be noted that amongst all the niche labeling, e.g. cage free, vegetarian fed, all natural, etc, the USDA Certified Organic label covers them all except for fortified egg production. Obviously any of the production methods can produce omega-3 and vitamin enriched eggs with the proper feed supplements.

"All Natural" is just a step above econo egg production, they keep the hens in cages and feed them natural grains with no industry by-products.

"Cage Free" is the next step up and a little more expensive, the birds are floor raised as in a breeder-layer facility, except without all the roosters.

"USDA Certified Organic" eggs are laid by cage free hens, with access to the outdoors as seasonally appropriate, and are fed certified organic rations where animal by-products are not allowed.

"USDA Certified Organic Omega-3 Fortified Eggs" hold the top niche along with the most expensive price. Flax seed is an expensive supplement and the flocks generally don't perform as well with the flax seed in the ration.

There are also animal welfare standards that most of the major egg producers follow. There is a United Egg Producers certification that cab be obtained from the UEP or there are independent certifiers such as American Humane that will certify egg producers that meet their animal welfare standards.

The UEP standards are here: http://www.uepcertified.com/media/pdf/UEP-Animal-Welfare-Guidelines.pdf

The UEP standards very closely parallel American Humane standards with only minor differences.

Does your production do as well or better than these standards?

 

[PortageGirl]

Quote:
The way I do it is to quote the actual post and then edit out the parts you DON't want there. After that, you can still copy and paste from other posts, but if you want it to show properly the [quote =person's name] must be at the beginning of the portion you want to quote. and at the end there must be an 'end quote' [/ quote] must be at the end of the section.

You can see the proper way it should look when you do the initial quote. I put some spaces in the example I posted so you could see, but there can't be any spaces in between.

 

[Big C]

You want the niche market of people who want locally and humanely raised, hand-delivered, leass than a week old eggs, people who will pay a premium or go out of their way for those gourmet eggs.

Eggland wants the supermarket shopper who wants a slightly healthier egg than is typically available in a supermarket. They will pay some premium for them, but not go out of their way.

You are not trying to appeal to the same market. Let Eggland have their own consumers. Your operation could not hope to supply all their customers with eggs.

Eggzactly...

We market our eggs sales as unique to our area. "Pasture raised" over 8 fenced "organic" acres.
Any of our cutomers can see our operation, pick up here our at our store. Since 1994 they know we "push" organic management techniques. You can't say "organic" anymore so we market as natural to our area. We sell all we can produce. Just added to our flock for increased production. Luckily early on we overbuilt our coops, but now we will be at max with the new birds. We have another built but unfinished coop that we will hopefully bring online thru the winter.

Egglands Best can have theirs, but we will pickoff those we can get with our quality that they can't match...