Cracked and dirty eggs continued to be packed into
retail-ready Grade A cartons by Gray Ridge Eggs last year.
The information is detailed in reports released by the
Canadian Food Inspection Agency in response to an application under the Access
to Information system.
I obtained a copy of the documents released to
the applicant, which was somebody else.
Gray Ridge has been revealed before to be packaging cracked
and dirty eggs in Grade A retail cartons as documented in Canadian Food
Inspection Agency reports I have obtained for several previous
years.
It is accused, along with Burnbrae Farms Ltd., of cheating
on Grade A standards in a lawsuit filed by Svante Lind of Best Choice Eggs who
alleges that the two dominant egg-grading companies conspired with the Egg
Farmers of Ontario marketing board to drive him out of the egg-grading
business.
The allegations have yet to be tested in court and both
companies deny any wrongdoing.
Another set of documents indicate Lashbrook Produce of
Elmira, a processor owned by L.H. Gray and Son Ltd., was both importing truckloads of ungraded eggs and
exporting tanker loads of processed eggs.
The typical import shipment was 1440 dozen ungraded eggs.
The exports where in stainless steel tanker trucks.
During 2008, L.H. Gray and Son Ltd. also imported truckloads of
graded U.S. eggs to its grading station at Listowel.
The imports were particularly heavy during the summer of
2008, but they continued right to the end of the year, including one shipment
of 1,505 dozen eggs on Dec. 30. Most truckloads were 1,500 dozen eggs.
The importing of graded eggs continued into 2009 and 2010.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency does not reveal who made
the original application for the documents.
All of the imported eggs and processed eggs moving to the
U.S. passed inspection.
One incoming load of organic eggs, probably from a Canadian
source, flunked inspection because there were too many cracked and dirty eggs.
That shipment in December, 2008, totaled 127.5 dozen brown eggs.
