BAD EGGS ON SALE

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 113, 6 February 1941, Page 9

BAD EGGS ON SALE

Abnormal Number Of Complaints POSITION “DEPLORABLE” Wellington is suffering from what a grocer described yesterday as a flood of bad eggs. The food the fowls have been receiving has been blamed, but scepticism is expressed at this explanation in some quarters.

The manager of a chain of groceries declared that the position was deplorable and disgusting and that he had taken up the subject with the Government. The explanation he had been given by an officer, but which did not convince him, was that the eggs were bad because of the time of the year and the feed the fowls had been given. The fowls’ food was said to have caused them to lay eggs that would not keep as long as usual. The feeding explanation was new to him, but he would not say it was untrue.

His own belief was that there were several causes. One was that eggs came to Wellington from so far away. Many came from the South Island. Another explanation might be that the poultry farmers had been keeping their eggs in anticipation of a rise in priep, and that the price having risen 2d. last week, they were now selling their old eggs. The flood of bad eggs had been noticeable since the rise in price. The time of the year was one when there were more bad eggs than at others, but he had never known there to be so many complaints as now. His firm had found as many as half the eggs in a quantity delivered to be bad. The proportion of bad eggs was an adverse advertisement for the grocery trade and for the Government’s grading system. The Government was urging housewives to buy graded eggs, and housewives concluded that graded eggs were guaranteed to be fresh. However, the eggs were graded only for size.

A grocer of very long experience In the trade in Wellington said he had had more complaints of bad eggs in the last few weeks than he could remember ever receiving before. He had never heard of the feeding of fowls being blamed for bad eggs being delivered. The condition of the eggs had been attributed to excessive heat in Hawke’s Bay, though the Wellington district had not had an excessively hot. summer. He doubted whether even the Government really knew the cause.

Bad eggs had been supplied in more than usual numbers from all the wholesale sources from which he obtained eggs. Today eggs were one of the most unsatisfactory lines for a retailer to handle.