eggs

Summer is in full swing and, for many, that means it's time for a picnic. Whether you stay in your backyard or head to your favorite lookout spot, a picnic is always a good idea. If you didn’t feast outdoors in July during National Picnic Month, there’s still time to enjoy a great meal with nice weather and peaceful scenery.

Did you know that in 2019, the U.S. produced more than 113 billion eggs? Here are some stats to help you learn more about this agricultural commodity tied to many springtime observances.

With summer right around the corner, it’s time to break out the grill and cornhole – May is National Barbecue Month! It’s also national beef, egg, strawberry, and salad month. Apropos of a backyard shindig, lemonade and apple pie days are also in May. As a matter of fact, the summer months coincide with the peak of several fruits and vegetables, nearly all perfect for a barbecue.

If you’re reading this blog, chances are, you enjoy eating ham. After a day of hunting for eggs and chasing the kids around the yard on Easter, it’s time for the family to enjoy that delicious ham they have been waiting for.

We know you’ve heard it before: seasonal migratory patterns bring an increased risk of disease-carrying birds interacting with commercial or backyard poultry. But the health and safety of our U.S. poultry flock is important enough to make it worth repeating. Birds, particularly waterfowl like ducks and geese, can carry avian influenza without showing any symptoms or signs of disease. Because the risk of introduction never goes away, having strong biosecurity practices on poultry operations can help prevent the spread of infectious disease before it starts. The 2014-2015 U.S. Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) outbreak is never far from my mind. It forced us to reevaluate our preparedness and response capabilities, from a federal, state, and industry standpoint. Today, we are all better prepared to handle and quickly respond to avian influenza detections.

August 6-12 is National Farmers Market Week, and the sunny days of summer make it a perfect time to drop by one of the more than 8,500 farmers markets across the country and load up for a picnic! While you put together your picnic shopping list, keep in mind that growers selling locally not only help increase access to fresh food, but they also create 13 full-time jobs for every $1 million in revenue earned.

As the agricultural landscape evolves to meet consumer demand, USDA Market News works to ensure that emerging sectors have the unbiased, reliable data they need to succeed in the marketplace.

USDA Market News – administered by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) – provides data that serves as the information lifeline for America’s agricultural economy.  Everyone in the ag supply chain is accustomed to visiting Market News for items like current wholesale and retail prices for beef cuts, but here at AMS we offer so much more.

When it comes to purchasing eggs, consumers have interests that go well beyond what they see in the carton.  For many buyers, where that egg came from and how it was produced are just as important as the finished product.  Organic, locally produced, cage-free, and free range are just a few of the marketing claims consumers will find on the carton, as producers try to communicate the attributes of their product.  To provide additional assurance to their customers of the validity of marketing claims, shell egg producers often enlist the services of USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS).

In recent months, a long list of large volume food buyers – including restaurants, grocers, distributors and more – have announced they will transition to sourcing eggs and egg products only from cage-free production systems.  You can learn more about this trend in a recent USDA Blog post.  Many shell egg suppliers have already found a way to assure customers that products marketed as cage-free are indeed sourced from such systems: when USDA Graded eggs are also identified as cage-free, they must undergo a review process to verify the claim is truthful.

Have you been to a supermarket to buy a carton of eggs lately?  If so, you may have found an array of food marketing claims on the packages.  All natural, organic, cage-free, pasture-raised, free range, non-GMO, raised without antibiotics, Omega-3 enriched and vegetarian-fed diet are just a small sample of the many claims consumers might see in the egg case. The modern food shopper is inundated by choice.

From its inception, the role of AMS has been to facilitate an efficient, fair, and competitive marketing system to benefit producers and consumers.  One of the ways AMS accomplishes this is by establishing and applying grade standards to different agricultural products. Terms such as “Grade A” and “Large” have become a trusted part of the American egg vocabulary, helping both farmers and consumers with descriptive labels. Other marketing terms that now appear on egg cartons have evolved to reflect consumers’ demand to understand things like where the eggs come from, how chickens were raised and who raised them.

I’ve had many jobs in my life, but none as challenging or rewarding as my career as a shell egg grader.  With a cumulative 22 years grading eggs in Ohio, I’ve witnessed first-hand the evolution of an industry.  I have also watched my agency – USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) – adapt right alongside the industry, maintaining valuable, unbiased grading and certification services that support marketing opportunities for American agriculture in a global marketplace.

Last year, shell egg graders with the AMS Livestock, Poultry, and Seed Program’s Quality Assessment Division (QAD) assisted the U.S. egg industry in exporting over 99.5 million dozen shell eggs to customers as far away as Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, and as near as Canada, Mexico, Central America, and Puerto Rico.