THE egg trade has had another strong run in the current pre-Christmas period.

Wholesale prices for colony have reached their highest point for the year, while free-range has completed five months of rising prices since the summer.

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Overall, average wholesale prices for colony have gained 50-60p/doz on the two main sizes, and free-range about 25p/doz (see chart).

“Everything is reasonably tight, and not much of anything is being offered at the moment,” said Andy Crossland at the Central Egg Agency.

“I don’t think we’ll see any further movements this side of Christmas, we are probably there.”

UK colony egg

The processing side has still got another couple of weeks to run, and the retail trade maybe three, he said. “Then no doubt there will be some tidying up to do in the New Year.”

“We are still very short on UK colony, while free range at the moment is pretty much in balance with retail. I suspect that’s where we’ll see some surplus come the New Year.”

“I don’t think it will be too bad. January tends to be a good month retail-wise once we get the surplus moved, so that will be the challenge to get everything moving again in the New Year,” he predicted.

Colony egg deadline

He believed the switch away from colony in the last few big retailers was probably on track for next year’s deadline: “There is expansion going on across the country. I don’t think we are going to be that far away, to be fair.”

Recent data for monthly pullet placings suggest that the size of laying flock will remain steady over the coming months, as it has largely been since March last year.

In October, the number of day-old pullets placed on units was down by 400,000 on a year earlier to 3.80m, offsetting a year-on-year increase of 480,000 in September.