Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Egg board escapes penalty



The $7.5-million penalty that hung over the Egg Farmers of Ontario marketing board for years has been waived.

Egg Farmers of Canada, the national agency, assessed the penalties because Ontario production exceeded the official limits.

But those limits proved to be less than the Ontario market needed to satisfy demand, so the national agency recently decided to waive all Liquidated Damages penalties because “there were no damages,” wrote Ontario Egg Board media relations manager Bill Mitchell.

The national agency also changed the regulations to match current market conditions.

On another front, the national agency undertook a cost-of-production study for enriched housing, which gives hens more space, and decided a premium of 11 cents a dozen is warranted. That is a penny more than the Ontario board had been paying.

About 80 per cent of Ontario’s eggs are produced in conventional housing, 15 per cent in enriched housing and five per cent in other housing setups, mainly aviaries that are necessary to meet organic production standards.
Under pressure from animal activist groups, many significant buyers of eggs, such as McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada, have set deadlines beyond which they will not buy eggs from hens housed in cages.