The national egg marketing agency is skinning the cat - again.
It seems able to increase prices whenever it feels the need.
In the current case, it didn't bother to consult the Canadian Egg and Poultry Processors Council, as it usually does, before it hiked the price it is charging for eggs for processing.
That decision will cut into margins in the food-processing industry because those companies which buy Canadian-priced egg products have to compete with imported products made with U.S.-priced eggs.
Normally the national agency has priced processing eggs according to U.S. market prices in order to give Canadian food processors a reasonable chance to remain competitive against imports.
Herman Turkstra, lawyer for the egg processors' council, said it is asking the Farm Products Council of Canada to intervene. That government-appointed council oversees the national egg, chicken, turkey and hatching egg marketing agencies.
A price increase for processing eggs will reduce costs for the egg farmers who underwrite the price differential between table-market and processing-market eggs.
Turkstra indicated that the government council is balking at allowing the national egg agency to continue to pass on all of the costs involved in diverting eggs from the one market to the other in the cost-of-production formula - i.e. passing on all of the costs to table-market egg consumers.
