Vocal Voices

Headlines scream that 700,000 dangerously contaminated eggs from the Netherlands are in the system. They make it appear that they could be in homes up and down the land and that hundreds of thousands of us could be at risk.

The details are a lot less frightening.

It has taken from the end of March to last week when the story broke for that number of eggs to pass through the UK system - about 6,000 a day. They have never been for counter sale as all of them have gone to food processors. The vast majority have already passed through the system, but when mixed with other ingredients the chemical, fipronil, will have become so diluted as to pose an insignificant threat according the the FSA. The Dutch, Belgian and German authorities are all saying that average consumption should be safe but that children eating one (contaminated) egg a day over a month long period would be a concern.

Still, our FSA has asked for some products to be taken off shelves *as a precaution* so we should be safe. Phew!

As a bit of perspective we Brits get through 34 million eggs every day and apart from the ones we sometimes buy *Free Range* as we pass a farm they are all Lion stamped and identifiable.

Omelette anyone?

Had three fried eggs earlier .....

Apparently, four supermarkets have removed certain eggy products from their shelves as a precaution. I guess they've got to, really, can't take the risk.

What's more concerning is that we need to import 700,000 eggs from the Netherlands. I'd have thought that's one product we'd have been self sufficient in, to be honest. That'll be the next headline:
"Brexit Fears over Egg Trade - Your Bacon and Egg Sarnies At Risk!!"

A man down our road told me that he was mugged by half a dozen foreign eggs last night as he walked home from the pub.

TheOstrich wrote:What's more concerning is that we need to import 700,000 eggs from the Netherlands. I'd have thought that's one product we'd have been self sufficient in, to be honest.

We produce 10.4 billion eggs and import 2.05 billion eggs. We also export 135 million eggs.

Simply put, it does not pay to farm eggs to overcapacity in the UK when we can't sell them to the EU as the EU is subsidising them elsewhere with their CAP subsidies... Better to under produce and import subsidised goods.

WM, I also read that the eggs were contaminated but _below_ the levels required by the EU??

The reason there was no notification was because of the legal case as the authorities believed blackmail might be involved. So the consumers couldn't be told that their products were contaminated as it would "taint" the evidence in the trial...

Way to go...