First Take: Eggs
Eggs are in high demand. Wise retailers view this shift as having the ideal circumstances to onboard brands that are new to consumers, broaden the number of SKUs available to shoppers to select from and give retailers the chance to creatively draw focus to their egg selection on a more regular basis than in years past. Leading egg suppliers are working with retailers to enlighten shoppers to the fact that not all eggs are sourced equally. This realization has pushed consumers into becoming informed and conscientious about animal welfare—namely, how the hens are contained—and the conditions in which farmers ensure the highest quality eggs from their hens. The abundance of egg brands, each coming to the table with a unique story and method of raising hens and subsequent impact on the quality of their eggs, allows consumers to support the brand that lines up with their values.
“Our industry is in the midst of a shift toward all-time-high fill rates on egg orders, something dairy managers haven’t experienced in recent years,” said George Weaver, President of Westfield Egg, home of Nature’s Yoke, Utopihen Farms and Elevated Delights. “Rather than receiving shortage emails, dairy managers now have the opportunity to bring on additional brands, expand SKUs, and promote eggs on a weekly basis. This change in the egg landscape creates a perfect moment for retailers to pause and ask, ‘What is the right egg for my shelf?’ Not all eggs, or the ways they are sourced, are equal. As availability increases, it’s important for dairy managers to consider which egg farms they align with and how those partnerships reflect their commitment to ethically raised eggs and to keeping American farmers in business.”
A key area of the eggs sector that is deserving of attention this year is, “Retail pricing strategy,” said Jay Berglind, CEO of Aegis Foods, home of Fearless Eggs. “Retail prices, particularly for value-added eggs, have been high since HPAI hit even as wholesale prices have fallen,” he elaborated.
With these changes, Berglind advises those in the egg category to consider, “What approaches do I use to retain margin and market share?”
Nestfresh noted animal welfare is always a big trend and focal point within the eggs category with farmers continually asking themselves where can they continue to improve in order to raise animal welfare standards. Another key area is environmental impact. “Regenerative organic is a significantly growing trend across the grocery store,” said Nestfresh VP Jasen Urena. But so is “regenerative agriculture, and we’re seeing that more and more as consumers are becoming knowledgeable about those aspects of regenerative agriculture—what it does for the land, how it improves the soil and what it can do for our environment long-term.”
Farmers who prioritize regenerative agriculture are making a longterm commitment. “Just because you farm regneratively, that doesn’t mean it’s going to change the world today,” Urena said. “But if we farm regeneratively for the next 15 to 20 years, and we have more acreage every year, we will see a change over that time span. That’s an important trend that we’re looking at and leaning into on the egg side. And it’s one that the rest of the food industry should really be looking at too.”
Nestfresh doesn’t abide by doing things a certain way just because that’s the way they’ve always been done, Urena said. “We never like to keep doing things just because it’s the way they’ve always been done,” he said. “For us, it’s the opposite. We always want to be doing something new and do something different. We’ve never been the brand to try and throw shame at others for not doing something, but instead it’s more so of showing them that this works.”
Westfield Eggs is concentrating on retailer partnerships and staying the course on its promise to offer eggs that meet the highest standards for quality and humane treatment of animals. A key area of focus will be “to share our 60-plus year story with retailers nationwide while maintaining our commitment to ethically sourced Free-Range & Pasture Raised eggs,” Weaver said.
Aegis Foods is intent on driving promotion and brand exposure in the coming months. The company’s Fearless Eggs line features Pasteurized Shell Eggs, which take credit for being the only retail pasteurized in shell eggs, promise a longer shelf life and stand out for being safe from Salmonella and are safe to cook and eat in any format, including raw.
Further, its Poach’d in the Shell Eggs line boasts being the world’s first poached in the shell eggs, providing gourmet-level results regardless of the consumer’s cooking skill level and bringing expediency and convenience to meal prep with eggs that only require consumers to warm, crack then serve an ideal poached egg. Even with these unique facets, Berglind said there is room for improvement when making people aware that these options exist. That’s why a top strategic focus in the new year is driving, “awareness at both consumer and retailer levels,” he said. “Our products are unique and innovative, but need exposure.”
Taking care of their farmers and animal welfare are two standing points for Nestfresh. “That’s what our brand and our business was built on, and now we’re really leaning into it this past couple of years with our branding,” Urena said. “To us, it’s important to support family farms because we’ve seen, not only in the egg industry, but across agriculture in general, the amount of farm consolidation over the last 10 years has been crazy. We’ve lost many individual farms. Consolidation is making it harder for the smaller family farms to compete. So we want to lean into that and be able to give these family farmers an opportunity to stay at home, live off their farm, make a good living for themselves and their families and put out a product that they feel good about and believe in. We bring hundreds of these farmers together into our production network and help give them the scale to compete against these bigger farms. We want to put them out there front and center so that consumers know where their eggs are coming from. The farmers that are working every day to produce the products. These are real people, real farmers, real families that are making all of our brand products possible.”
