Egg Selling: Challenges

Has anyone experienced difficulty(legal or otherwise) selling hatching eggs or eggs for human consumption? I'd like to know, as selling eggs is one of my future plans.

Check with your state ag dept or county extension agent. In my state you have to go through training on safety and grading before you can be licensed to sell them.

Complying with Regulations to Sell Farm Fresh Eggs

Wow, according to the Florida regulations, you will have sell a LOT of eggs just to cover your annuals fees & permits and other costs. Small egg producers will be forced to sell illegally.

Although the regulations are a bit different here in Hawaii, small producers cannot legally sell their eggs here either. There are lots of people selling 5-15 dozen eggs a week, but sales are kept low key. At the farmers markets whenever the health inspector is spied, the word travels fast. Things disappear under tables - eggs, honey, jams, cheese, macnuts, dried fish, other food items. Our county requires that eggs be graded. Since there is no USDA grader on the island, all sales are thus illegal. Go figure.

Over here we tend to be "outlaws" and sell our farm produce anyway. The government is not very friendly to the small producer.

Su Ba wrote:Wow, according to the Florida regulations, you will have sell a LOT of eggs just to cover your annuals fees & permits and other costs. Small egg producers will be forced to sell illegally.

Although the regulations are a bit different here in Hawaii, small producers cannot legally sell their eggs here either. There are lots of people selling 5-15 dozen eggs a week, but sales are kept low key. At the farmers markets whenever the health inspector is spied, the word travels fast. Things disappear under tables - eggs, honey, jams, cheese, macnuts, dried fish, other food items. Our county requires that eggs be graded. Since there is no USDA grader on the island, all sales are thus illegal. Go figure.

Over here we tend to be "outlaws" and sell our farm produce anyway. The government is not very friendly to the small producer.

Oh, don't worry. I don't intend to live in FL for very long.

Yeah, I see your point about regulations. USDA and FDA abuses exist pretty much everywhere in this country, and only the farmers really know what's going on, which has to stop.

If two consenting, law-abiding people want to exchange goods and services, why does the government have to stick its nose and money bag into it? I can understand if you're a big farmer, selling thousands of dozens per month or something. But locally, with neighbors, etc., it's just ridiculous.

It's all going to vary state to state. In Missouri there's a $5 license/year to sell eggs retail, which is perfectly reasonable. (Oddly, it's administered through the Division of Weights and Measures, the same people who certify produce scales and gas station pumps. Go figure.) Eggs sold for human consumption have to be clean (I don't think it's specified how this is to be done) and kept refrigerated, which can be a pain when it comes to selling at a farmers market.

But there's very little if any oversight regarding hatching eggs. I know for certain that hatching eggs don't have to be refrigerated (of course--if they were they wouldn't hatch!), which means that a farmer could theoretically sell "hatching eggs" out in the open at a farmers market. Since eggs will keep perfectly well for a while unrefrigerated, if one could just convince customers that these "hatching eggs" were safe to eat (while necessarily advertising them as "not for human consumption") one could find a nice little loophole. Kind of like customers buying raw milk as "pet food" and consuming it themselves. Maybe that's too much trouble to go through to sell eggs, but it's at least an option.

Probably the hardest part of selling eggs is pricing. I think a dozen large eggs comes out to around 1.5 lb., and if we're comparing it to other high quality forms of protein that should probably retail for at least $7.50 ($5.00/lb.), but the number of people willing to pay $5.00/lb. for a dozen eggs is a lot smaller than the number willing to pay $5.00/lb. for grassfed ground beef. Yet another way in which chickens are discriminated against in the marketplace.

It's interesting to see the prices people are willing to pay.

Pasture raised eggs from vital farms sell for $8 a doz here. They are usually always sold out. There's a local start-up that's about $5.50 or so, but they are even harder to find.

Heck, even organic 'vegetarian' eggs at the mega-mart are $4.50.

Interesting prices Here in Angers Free range Eggs from the Organic shop are 1.70€ for six Free range About 1.30€ Caged birds about 1.10 € But you can pay more if you cannot be bothered to shop around .

David

I'm pretty sure here in n.c. you have to sell a ridiculous amount of eggs before you have to jump through any hoops at all. Something like a couple hundred dozen a week, then they only have to be graded. N.C. is VERY nice about cottage industry, lots of other ridiculous legislation, but regarding cottage industry we are very lucky!


I would definitely consider looking into product liability insurance though, people in this day and age are looking for the "new american dream" which is to be lucky enough to find something they can sue a person over... It's a fairly reasonable fee, and the plus side is after you have it, it opens up lots of new doors and marketing opportunities for you that would otherwise be closed. I would assume that there are certain practices you have to follow as per the insurance companies requests though. We do not have it yet since we're not selling products yet, but our wholesalers demand it, so this is something we will be dealing with in the next year or two.

Su Ba wrote:
Over here we tend to be "outlaws" and sell our farm produce anyway. The government is not very friendly to the small producer.

FOR THE WIN!!!

We only legitimize government when we comply. We need to do the RIGHT thing, not the required thing.
Su Ba, leading by example!

Over here chicken eggs sell for $3.50 to $4, and duck eggs $5-6.00. Hatching eggs sell for slightly higher as they're only from certain breeding hens. Not many laws on it, even in NY. I start with giving the first dozen free, and work hard for a good customer base. It doesn't cover all the feed, but then again I haven't really calculated how many eggs my family and I eat either.

I try to avoid buying product of any kind from those who have complied with our agricultural quota laws. By complying, they legitimize a system which criminalizes food production.