Farmer Julie Anderson of the 1,700-acre Negril Spot Farm packs eggs for delivery. - PHOTO BY JANET SILVERA
LIQUEFIED EGGS will soon be available on the shelves of Jamaican supermarkets as part of a move by the Egg Farmers Association to introduce a value-added product, mainly for the hotel and baking industries.
President of the Egg Farmers Association, Mark Campbell, says his association will be building a plant in the next three months at a cost of between J$25 million and J$30 million to process eggs into the liquefied form. He said the facility will be sited in St. Catherine and negotiations were now being finalised with the owners of the property identified. The buildings are to be pre-assembled by the suppliers and shipped to Jamaica shortly.
A FIRST FOR THE CARIBBEAN
The plant which is the first of its kind in the Caribbean is being set up to assist the island's 60,000 egg farmers and will be capable initially of liquefying 8,000 dozen eggs per hour, with the capacity to increase that amount to 15,000 dozen eggs per hour.
Egg farmers in Jamaica produce about 11 million dozen eggs per year from nearly 500,000 layers.
In commenting on the timing for the local introduction of liquefied eggs which would be pasteurised for better shelf life Mr. Campbell said a feasibility study carried out by the Egg Farmers Association revealed that there was a big demand for eggs in such a convenient form.
"For instance, a hotel catering to 1,000 to 2,000 guests at any one time, would have to employ two people just to break eggs. But with the liquefied eggs, production time in the kitchen can be drastically reduced," he explained.
In fact, Mr. Campbell noted that in recent times local hotels had imported liquefied eggs, which supported the Egg Farmers Association's survey of the market confirming that there was a need for this value-added product.
