In-Ovo Sexing has Now Hit 20% of the Market in the EU
According to original research by Innovate Animal Ag, in-ovo sexing has now reached a 20% market penetration in the EU as of March 2024. Every six months, Innovate Animal Ag releases a new In-Ovo Sexing Market Penetration Report, which estimates how widely in-ovo sexing technology is adopted. This most recent report indicates that 78.4 million out of the nearly 400 million hens in the EU had been sexed in-ovo at the end of Q1. Notably, this is up 5 percentage points from the previous report six months ago, which had indicated a 15% market penetration at the end of Q3 2023.
Industrial technologies, such as in-ovo sexing machines, typically have longer lead times and more complicated installation logistics compared to consumer technologies. Despite this, it is remarkable that the rollout of in-ovo sexing technology is similar to the rapid penetration of smartphones in the US a decade ago. From 2011 to 2015, smartphone market penetration in the US increased by 10 percentage points annually—the same annual growth rate observed for in-ovo sexing technology in the EU over the past six months.
One of the main factors driving adoption is a 22% reduction in cost since 2020. Intense competition between technologies and economies of scale are driving reductions in error rates, improved labor footprint, and increased hourly throughput of the technology. The cost of in-ovo sexing is now less than 1 cent per egg on supermarket shelves.
It’s likely that market penetration in Europe will continue to quickly rise in the coming months. Six new machines – Orbem machines at Hendrix Bad Bentheim, Pluriton, Lohmann Dorum, Sirevåg Hatchery, and Ter Heerdt hatcheries, and new Respeggt circuits or partnerships with A.C Weiss, Lohmann Ankum, and Het Anker hatcheries – were recently announced, each of which has the capability of producing millions of hens per year. However, given that it takes some time for a machine to begin operation, many of these machines will have either not started producing, or will only have produced a small number of hens relative to their capacity. Given how quickly the scale up in Europe is occurring, soon business leaders around the world will have the opportunity to create a value-added, more ethical egg category using in-ovo sexing technology.
Full coverage of this research can be found at Poultry World. Check out our Overview page for more information on in-ovo sexing, which will be kept up to date with new developments as soon they occur.
