A vendor arranges eggs at a market in Mudanjiang City in northeastern Heilongjiang Province.SD-Agencies
Big opportunities in the egg industry are emerging in China as people become more concerned about food safety and the quality of life.
BUYING a box of fresh eggs in a mainland supermarket can present consumers with a confusing array of choices. Judging by the labels, there are green eggs, ecological eggs, tu eggs and grain eggs. There are also early eggs, which the producer says is the first egg that a pullet ever laid, and baby eggs, which is said to be rich in DHA, an omega-3 fatty acid, good for children s brain development.
One Sichuan egg farm claims its hens are raised in bigger cages so that they can get more exercise and produce better quality eggs, while a Shanghai firm says its hens are given only vegetarian food and their eggs can be eaten raw, thanks to certain technology introduced from Japan.
Although the prices of these eggs are usually twice that of ordinary eggs, the sales gimmicks they use are often effective in attracting health-conscious buyers.
I only buy branded eggs, said Zhang Fengxia, a Beijing mother of a two-year-old girl. She is a loyal customer of tu eggs or, literally, earth eggs, whose producers say their hens are raised cage-free and fed worms.
I know it s hard to verify whether what the producers say is true or not, Zhang said. But I generally believe something with a brand rather than those coming from somewhere unknown.
Big opportunities in the egg industry are emerging in China, the world s No. 1 egg-consuming country, as people become more concerned about food safety and the quality of life. An increasing number of egg producers are building larger plants, packing their eggs attractively and promoting them as a safe and nutritious food.
There are about 770,000 egg farms on the mainland, raising more than 1.3 billion laying hens and producing 40 percent of the eggs in the world. Most are small-scale operations with fewer than 10,000 hens.
This situation will change in three to five years, said Moksa Zhang Xuan, the marketing director of Beijing DQY Agricultural Technology, the biggest egg producer in Asia.
He said China s egg industry would follow the development of the United States and Europe, where the markets are dominated by several industry leaders.
Zhang said the average gross profit margin in the industry was 20 percent and the net profit was only 3 to 5 percent. His company posted 300 million yuan in sales revenue last year.
To boost the profit margin and capture the high-end demand, DQY launched two lines of specialty eggs, which are nutritionally enhanced with vitamins. Each specialty egg is priced between 1.60 yuan and 2.60 yuan, up to five times the price of the ordinary non-branded eggs.
Originally, our targeted customers were women between 25 and 45 with a monthly household income of more than 5,000 yuan, Zhang said. Yet we ve found recently that younger, older or less well-off customers are also interested in our products.
He admitted people s concern about food safety is a major reason for the booming sales. In 2006, a batch of eggs in Hubei was found to contain the cancer-causing chemical dye, Sudan Red. Another dangerous chemical, melamine, was also detected in the shell of eggs sold by a Dalian company three years ago.
Han Zhaopeng, a communications manager of the National Engineering Research Center, said branded eggs would take a much bigger share than their current 5 percent or so of the entire market, since people tended to trust big brands.
The traditional way of raising layers in farmers houses is phasing out generally, Han said. The era of the three-nos for eggs [no standards, no production date and no brands] will end.
To regulate the egg market, he said, the center would establish a set of rules jointly with the Ministry of Commerce this year, giving clear definitions of standards for the industry, including how egg producers name and describe their products.
Currently, the United States and some European countries classify eggs as in cage, cage free, free range and organic. But there are no official classifications in China and producers can name their eggs as they see fit.
Some of them use names like tu eggs or organic eggs to attract buyers, but the eggs are usually not what they claim to be on the packaging, Han said. The future of China s egg industry will be like today s in the United States, he said. (SD-Agencies)
