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Send to KindleEgg codes convey Rose Acre's quality commitment
"We've had the coders operating for about a year now" says Rigterink. "Before they were installed we didn't code the eggs. We feel the codes give the consumer one more tool to make sure the eggs they're buying are fresh. Consumers have had the dating on the outside of the egg carton but many times when the consumer takes them home they remove the eggs from the carton for refrigerator storage and throw out the carton. So when the consumer goes to use them they may have no idea how old they are." By date coding individual eggs consumers now have that information.
Indicating freshness
The actual code varies. A "laid-on" date indicates what day the bird actually laid the egg. A "packaged-on" date tells what day the egg was placed in the carton. A "best-if-used-by" date also helps the consumer understand shelf life.
Rigterink explains that the egg business in general has been scrutinized in recent years due to concerns about freshness. "According to USDA rules to use the word 'fresh' eggs must be packaged in no more than 30 days from the date of lay. That becomes very difficult to determine when eggs are sold from one processor to another to another. In that off-line process where an egg is produced in a chicken house gathered and sent to a separate plant for processing there's just no good way for the consumer to know how fresh the egg is."
He describes the Rose Acre Farms process as "an in-line grading facility where we package the eggs at the same plant they're laid usually within an eight-hour period and always within 24 hours."
Carton coding
After the individual eggs are coded the eggs are gently delivered to 14 separate packing heads/lanes all of which are part of the Staalkat machine. Each lane handles a specific egg size or grade. All eggs produced and packaged at White County are white in color. The computerized packing units use weight information from the upstream scales to determine which lane to deliver each egg to. Large Grade A eggs are the most common size Rigterink says. Four of the 14 lanes are dedicated to this egg size.
Eggs are mechanically packed into cartons opened by the Staalkat egg grading and packing machine. Carton tops are closed onto the filled egg cartons which hold either 12 or 18 eggs. Closed cartons are discharged from the machine onto a conveyor where either a Domino A200 or older contact coder applies a Julian date code as well as a federal number that identifies the packing plant. Eggs are then manually placed in shipping cases taped shut palletized stretch-wrapped and delivered by refrigerated truck to grocery wholesalers nationwide.
About 70% of the eggs produced at White County egg farm are sold under Rose Acre Farms brands with the balance packed as private-label offerings. All eggs are sold refrigerated with a sell-by or use-by date of up to 30 days.
Coding individual eggs is not inexpensive Rigterink admits. He also believes "that the codes have not been utilized as fully as we would like by retailers and wholesalers. We're working on training those customers though and we're making progress. We feel this has a future because a few years from now we'll see eggs being retailed and marketed with more of an emphasis on the freshness code rather than sheer number of egg sizes. We have a way to go but to this point the process has been successful."
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