BFREPA chairman James Baxter has written to 50 celebrity chefs asking them to help “end Britain’s obsession with large eggs”.
It forms part of a broader Bfrepa campaign to redress the balance in egg weights, with retailers, recipes and celebrity chefs often asking for large eggs.
The result is depressed demand for medium and small eggs, and subsequently lower returns at the farm gate for those sizes, which with seconds included account for 45% of a birds’ production, according to Adas.
Furthermore, pushing birds to produce a higher proportion of large eggs can be detrimental to welfare.
As such,
Mr Baxter said: “Free range eggs are a staple of British diets but shoppers have become obsessed with getting the biggest egg they can.
“Egg size can be affected by a number of variables such as the weather, diet and light levels – as farmers bird welfare is our number one priority and we want to allow hens to lay what comes naturally.
“We hope that these letters will resonate with chefs and bakers who are in positions of influence but, more importantly, care deeply about how food is produced.”