Food Safety and Quality Assurance program for all egg producers
Although it's not compulsory for small producers, it's a good idea for all egg farms to have a quality assurance and food safety program in place to ensure that eggs delivered to customers are top quality and safe to eat.
Eggs are a nutritional powerhouse. They provide13 vitamins and minerals, high quality protein and important antioxidants. Eggs are also tasty, convenient and good value for
money, making them an excellent inclusion in a well-balanced diet.
Food safety is as important with eggs as it is with meat, seafood and dairy products.
There can be health risks if eggs are not handled, stored and prepared safely. This has been clearly demonstrated by illnesses caused by eating eggs contaminated by salmonella bacteria. When the eggs are dirty they may be contaminated with bacteria, which can cause serious food poisoning (diarrhoea and vomiting). At Freeranger Eggs, our production methods ensure that our eggs are not dirty - by maintaining a low stocking density so the hens have plenty of space. We move sheds regularly and keeping next boxes clean. There is no need for our eggs to be washed. A light buffing with an abrasive pad to remove marks on some eggs is all that is required.
As a bare minimum, egg producers in Victoria are required to be registered with the Department of Environment and Primary Industries as well as with their local council. They must maintain a Food Safety Management Statement and from November 2014, all eggs produced in Victoria must be stamped with a farm identification code.
Food Safety and Quality Assurance are critical elements of practice on free range egg farms. The commercial egg industry recognised some time ago that there was a clear need for quality
assurance programs to minimise the risks in selling eggs to the public. The process has been driven by consumers and the big supermarkets. To assist in this, a generic QA and Food Safety program is available to all egg producers on our Freeranger Club page. It can be easily adapted to meet the processes on any egg farm.
A Quality Assurance program needs to encompass many different codes of practice, government regulations, food safety, welfare, biosecurity and quality standards. Hazard Analysis principles based on HACCP are used extensively to determine the hazards that can affect the viability of egg farms.
The number of hazards identified on poultry farms pushed the industry to adopt proposals for various different programs designed to control the hazards.
The program brought together a variety of codes of practice and requirements:
hazards to food safety associated with various stages in egg production and
storage. This system virtually eliminates the need for final product testing, by
identifying the hazards likely to occur during the egg production process and by
analysing the level of risk. Once the level of risk has been identified, measures are put in place to control the possibility of the final product being contaminated or ruined.
The seven principles of a HACCP program are:
1. Identify and list hazards that can occur at each step in the
production process.
2. Identify the Critical Control Points (CCP) where hazards are
prevented, eliminated or reduced to an acceptable level. These hazards can
irrevocably damage the final product – eggs that customers purchase.
3. Establish critical limits for preventative measures at each CCP. A
limit is a measurable value that must be kept within the given limits
to prevent, eliminate or reduce the hazard.
4. Establish monitoring procedures for each CCP, including allocating
responsibility to an individual. Ask What, When, Where and How
is monitoring occurring, and Who is doing it.
5. Define the corrective action to be taken when monitoring indicates
that a CCP has been exceeded. This step prevents contaminated eggs being sold to
customers and contamination re-occurring.
6. Develop and maintain proper record keeping.
7. Develop a verification program that confirms the adequacy of CCP's
and critical limits; ensures proper operation of the HACCP plan and its ongoing reassessment.
Documentation is required that verifies CCP’s are being controlled.
In recent years, the public has become more aware of the issues surrounding
the quality of the produce they buy and they are now presented with a very
diverse range of foods. Customers are becoming more discerning about the foods
they buy, which means that price is often not the determining factor in any
purchase.
All commercial egg farms in Victoria should develop and implement a robust Quality Assurance program, because customers are demanding assurance about the safety and quality of eggs.
For a QA program to be developed and implemented on a farm, all workers within the business must have a commitment to producing a quality product. There is a need to understand each step in producing a quality product. When all workers have sufficient information about the expectations of the farm manager/owner and a thorough knowledge of how QA can help the farm develop, then a commitment to egg quality will be possible.
We have a farm policy that we will not sell eggs which are older than one week and all our eggs are stored and transported within tight temperature control limits which means that all our eggs are delivered fresh. At times our customers may buy other eggs and here are a few tips:
To enjoy eggs safely, buy clean, uncracked eggs that are within their ‘best before’ date, store them in the fridge in their carton and cook until hot all the way through. If you follow these basic food safety tips, you can significantly reduce the chances of you or your family becoming ill from bacteria in or on the eggs.
Avoid cracked and dirty eggs
Bacteria from dirt or chicken droppings on the outside of the shell can enter the egg through cracks that are sometimes too fine to see. Once inside the egg, bacteria can grow, increasing the risk of illness. Ask your egg supplier if the farm has a food safety program in place and if the eggs have been washed. If they have been so dirty that they needed to be washed then the farm has a management problem. A light buffing should be all that's required to remove slight marks.
When purchasing eggs, you can take a number of steps to keep food safe:
• Open the carton and check the eggs look clean and are not cracked before
purchasing.
• Don’t buy ‘self-serve’ eggs (where you select individual eggs from a bulk display).
You won’t know where the eggs are from, how they have been stored and
handled, or their ‘best before’ date.
• Consider that larger eggs may have thinner shells and are more likely to crack and let
in bacteria.
• If you find a dirty or cracked egg, throw it out.
• Don’t wash eggs as the shell becomes more porous when wet, making it easier for
bacteria to get in. The best way to store eggs is to keep them in their own carton in the fridge.
• The ‘best before’ date on the carton assumes you are storing your eggs in the fridge. If
you do not store your eggs in the fridge, you will need to use them sooner than the ‘best
before’ date on the carton.
• Egg shells are porous and can become tainted by strong-smelling foods in your
fridge. Keeping them in the carton makes this less likely to happen.
• The ‘best before’ date should be on the carton – if you take the eggs out of the carton, you
won’t know when the date has passed.
Take the same precautions as for meat or dairy
Take the same precautions with eggs as you would with chicken, meat, seafood or dairy products:
• Buy and use eggs before the ‘best before’ date.
• Thoroughly clean your hands, food areas, work surfaces, dishes, cleaning cloths and
utensils after working with eggs and especially after egg spills.
• Serve hot dishes containing eggs straight away or cool them quickly in the fridge and
keep them refrigerated until they are eaten.
Cook eggs until they are hot all the way through
Cook eggs and foods containing eggs until they are hot all the way through:
• Cooking eggs thoroughly kills bacteria, but bacteria can survive if food is not cooked
until it’s hot all the way through.
• The more thoroughly cooked the egg, the less likely it is that bacteria can survive.
• Foods containing eggs that are thoroughly cooked are generally safe.
Avoid uncooked food that contains raw eggs
Home made foods containing uncooked, or lightly cooked eggs are often linked to food
poisoning. Common examples of these foods include:
• Home made mayonnaise, egg butter and salad dressings
• Béarnaise and hollandaise sauces
• Milkshakes with raw egg
• Home made ice-cream using raw eggs
• Mousses, custards and tiramisu
• Uncooked pancake batter, cake mix, pastry or biscuit dough.
Commercially available versions of these foods (that you buy ‘off the shelf’)are generally safe, as they will almost certainly have been produced using pasteurised egg or will have been heat
treated. To check, read the label or get in touch with the manufacturer.
Where to get help
• Food Safety Hotline Tel. 1300 364 352 or email:
[email protected]
• Your local council health department
Things to remember
• Buy clean – check eggs are clean and uncracked before purchasing.
• Keep cool – store eggs in the fridge in their cartons.
• Cook well – cook eggs until they are hot all the way through, especially when serving
to pregnant women, young children, elderly people and anyone with an
illness.
At Freeranger Eggs, no animal by-products are used in the feed we provide for our hens. We provide a mash of natural grains to supplement the feed they obtain by grazing all day on
the range.
Many eggs farms used pelletised feed containing meat meal – and often that meat meal is derived from poultry. They also use colouring additives which generate health problems in some people.
Details are on the Poultry CRC website: http://www.poultryhub.org/nutrition/feed-ingredients/
Animal protein sources
The main animal protein sources used in poultry diets are meat meal, meat and bone meal, fish meal, poultry by-product meal, blood meal and feather meal.
Further information on animal protein sources in poultry diets is shown in the section on animal protein meals. The average nutrient composition of common animal protein sources are in Table 3 on the CRC site.
Eggs are a nutritional powerhouse. They provide13 vitamins and minerals, high quality protein and important antioxidants. Eggs are also tasty, convenient and good value for
money, making them an excellent inclusion in a well-balanced diet.
Food safety is as important with eggs as it is with meat, seafood and dairy products.
There can be health risks if eggs are not handled, stored and prepared safely. This has been clearly demonstrated by illnesses caused by eating eggs contaminated by salmonella bacteria. When the eggs are dirty they may be contaminated with bacteria, which can cause serious food poisoning (diarrhoea and vomiting). At Freeranger Eggs, our production methods ensure that our eggs are not dirty - by maintaining a low stocking density so the hens have plenty of space. We move sheds regularly and keeping next boxes clean. There is no need for our eggs to be washed. A light buffing with an abrasive pad to remove marks on some eggs is all that is required.
As a bare minimum, egg producers in Victoria are required to be registered with the Department of Environment and Primary Industries as well as with their local council. They must maintain a Food Safety Management Statement and from November 2014, all eggs produced in Victoria must be stamped with a farm identification code.
Food Safety and Quality Assurance are critical elements of practice on free range egg farms. The commercial egg industry recognised some time ago that there was a clear need for quality
assurance programs to minimise the risks in selling eggs to the public. The process has been driven by consumers and the big supermarkets. To assist in this, a generic QA and Food Safety program is available to all egg producers on our Freeranger Club page. It can be easily adapted to meet the processes on any egg farm.
A Quality Assurance program needs to encompass many different codes of practice, government regulations, food safety, welfare, biosecurity and quality standards. Hazard Analysis principles based on HACCP are used extensively to determine the hazards that can affect the viability of egg farms.
The number of hazards identified on poultry farms pushed the industry to adopt proposals for various different programs designed to control the hazards.
The program brought together a variety of codes of practice and requirements:
- Model Code of Practice for the Welfare of Animals – Domestic Poultry.
- Labelling laws.
- Code of practice for biosecurity in the egg industry.
- Code of practice for shell egg, production, grading, packing and distribution.
- Occupational Health and Safety on commercial egg farms.
- Environmental management systems for commercial egg farms.
- Primary Production and Processing Standard for Eggs and Egg Product
- Food Safety for Victorian Egg Producers
Reading through these all this documentation enables egg farm operators to
adapt the generic egg farm QA program and develop their own farm manual.
The level of risk on any farm is something that needs to be taken seriously.
Not only the physical risk of injury from accidents, the lack of servicing
equipment or the risk of mechanical failure but also the risk of damaging the
businesses reputation or impacting on the farm's viability. It is worth
evaluating the levels of risk and product quality. Is “getting it right 99%
of the time” OK.
Is ‘close enough’ good enough’ for the egg producer?
For a 2,000 bird farm being right 99% of the time in one year can mean: - 5,500 cracked eggs are packed per year.
- 6 tonnes feed is paid for but not received.
- Egg collections leave 1,500 eggs in the nests.
- Water does not flow to layer sheds twice a year.
- 20 replacement pullets delivered are males.
- 5 nipple drinkers not working every day.
- Customers not paying for 0.1% of deliveries, that's around $550 per year.
hazards to food safety associated with various stages in egg production and
storage. This system virtually eliminates the need for final product testing, by
identifying the hazards likely to occur during the egg production process and by
analysing the level of risk. Once the level of risk has been identified, measures are put in place to control the possibility of the final product being contaminated or ruined.
The seven principles of a HACCP program are:
1. Identify and list hazards that can occur at each step in the
production process.
2. Identify the Critical Control Points (CCP) where hazards are
prevented, eliminated or reduced to an acceptable level. These hazards can
irrevocably damage the final product – eggs that customers purchase.
3. Establish critical limits for preventative measures at each CCP. A
limit is a measurable value that must be kept within the given limits
to prevent, eliminate or reduce the hazard.
4. Establish monitoring procedures for each CCP, including allocating
responsibility to an individual. Ask What, When, Where and How
is monitoring occurring, and Who is doing it.
5. Define the corrective action to be taken when monitoring indicates
that a CCP has been exceeded. This step prevents contaminated eggs being sold to
customers and contamination re-occurring.
6. Develop and maintain proper record keeping.
7. Develop a verification program that confirms the adequacy of CCP's
and critical limits; ensures proper operation of the HACCP plan and its ongoing reassessment.
Documentation is required that verifies CCP’s are being controlled.
In recent years, the public has become more aware of the issues surrounding
the quality of the produce they buy and they are now presented with a very
diverse range of foods. Customers are becoming more discerning about the foods
they buy, which means that price is often not the determining factor in any
purchase.
All commercial egg farms in Victoria should develop and implement a robust Quality Assurance program, because customers are demanding assurance about the safety and quality of eggs.
For a QA program to be developed and implemented on a farm, all workers within the business must have a commitment to producing a quality product. There is a need to understand each step in producing a quality product. When all workers have sufficient information about the expectations of the farm manager/owner and a thorough knowledge of how QA can help the farm develop, then a commitment to egg quality will be possible.
We have a farm policy that we will not sell eggs which are older than one week and all our eggs are stored and transported within tight temperature control limits which means that all our eggs are delivered fresh. At times our customers may buy other eggs and here are a few tips:
To enjoy eggs safely, buy clean, uncracked eggs that are within their ‘best before’ date, store them in the fridge in their carton and cook until hot all the way through. If you follow these basic food safety tips, you can significantly reduce the chances of you or your family becoming ill from bacteria in or on the eggs.
Avoid cracked and dirty eggs
Bacteria from dirt or chicken droppings on the outside of the shell can enter the egg through cracks that are sometimes too fine to see. Once inside the egg, bacteria can grow, increasing the risk of illness. Ask your egg supplier if the farm has a food safety program in place and if the eggs have been washed. If they have been so dirty that they needed to be washed then the farm has a management problem. A light buffing should be all that's required to remove slight marks.
When purchasing eggs, you can take a number of steps to keep food safe:
• Open the carton and check the eggs look clean and are not cracked before
purchasing.
• Don’t buy ‘self-serve’ eggs (where you select individual eggs from a bulk display).
You won’t know where the eggs are from, how they have been stored and
handled, or their ‘best before’ date.
• Consider that larger eggs may have thinner shells and are more likely to crack and let
in bacteria.
• If you find a dirty or cracked egg, throw it out.
• Don’t wash eggs as the shell becomes more porous when wet, making it easier for
bacteria to get in. The best way to store eggs is to keep them in their own carton in the fridge.
• The ‘best before’ date on the carton assumes you are storing your eggs in the fridge. If
you do not store your eggs in the fridge, you will need to use them sooner than the ‘best
before’ date on the carton.
• Egg shells are porous and can become tainted by strong-smelling foods in your
fridge. Keeping them in the carton makes this less likely to happen.
• The ‘best before’ date should be on the carton – if you take the eggs out of the carton, you
won’t know when the date has passed.
Take the same precautions as for meat or dairy
Take the same precautions with eggs as you would with chicken, meat, seafood or dairy products:
• Buy and use eggs before the ‘best before’ date.
• Thoroughly clean your hands, food areas, work surfaces, dishes, cleaning cloths and
utensils after working with eggs and especially after egg spills.
• Serve hot dishes containing eggs straight away or cool them quickly in the fridge and
keep them refrigerated until they are eaten.
Cook eggs until they are hot all the way through
Cook eggs and foods containing eggs until they are hot all the way through:
• Cooking eggs thoroughly kills bacteria, but bacteria can survive if food is not cooked
until it’s hot all the way through.
• The more thoroughly cooked the egg, the less likely it is that bacteria can survive.
• Foods containing eggs that are thoroughly cooked are generally safe.
Avoid uncooked food that contains raw eggs
Home made foods containing uncooked, or lightly cooked eggs are often linked to food
poisoning. Common examples of these foods include:
• Home made mayonnaise, egg butter and salad dressings
• Béarnaise and hollandaise sauces
• Milkshakes with raw egg
• Home made ice-cream using raw eggs
• Mousses, custards and tiramisu
• Uncooked pancake batter, cake mix, pastry or biscuit dough.
Commercially available versions of these foods (that you buy ‘off the shelf’)are generally safe, as they will almost certainly have been produced using pasteurised egg or will have been heat
treated. To check, read the label or get in touch with the manufacturer.
Where to get help
• Food Safety Hotline Tel. 1300 364 352 or email:
[email protected]
• Your local council health department
Things to remember
• Buy clean – check eggs are clean and uncracked before purchasing.
• Keep cool – store eggs in the fridge in their cartons.
• Cook well – cook eggs until they are hot all the way through, especially when serving
to pregnant women, young children, elderly people and anyone with an
illness.
At Freeranger Eggs, no animal by-products are used in the feed we provide for our hens. We provide a mash of natural grains to supplement the feed they obtain by grazing all day on
the range.
Many eggs farms used pelletised feed containing meat meal – and often that meat meal is derived from poultry. They also use colouring additives which generate health problems in some people.
Details are on the Poultry CRC website: http://www.poultryhub.org/nutrition/feed-ingredients/
Animal protein sources
The main animal protein sources used in poultry diets are meat meal, meat and bone meal, fish meal, poultry by-product meal, blood meal and feather meal.
Further information on animal protein sources in poultry diets is shown in the section on animal protein meals. The average nutrient composition of common animal protein sources are in Table 3 on the CRC site.
