In-Ovo Sexing Quarterly Roundup: Q1 2024
Welcome to Innovate Animal Ag’s in-ovo sexing quarterly roundup for Q1 2024, where we dive into the latest news for the technology, and what it means for consumers and producers across the globe.
Business Roundup
In-ovo sexing is coming to the US! John Brunquell, President and Founder of Egg Innovations, a prominent American specialty egg producer, announced in the New York Times that in-ovo sexing is coming to the United States in 2025. According to the article, one of the Egg Innovations’ main hatcheries “was on track to adopt the technology in early 2025 and that [Brunquell] expected to begin selling eggs produced with the new technique late next summer.” You can read more in our latest blog post.
Omegga, a German startup developing a new kind of in-ovo sexing technology, was awarded €2.4 million from the European Commission. They were one of 42 winners that emerged from a pool of 1083 startup finalists for the European Innovation Council's prestigious accelerator program. Till Nöllgen, Co-CEO of Omegga told Innovate Animal Ag that they “are honored to have received backing from the European Commission, supporting our mission to introduce the market’s earliest, non-invasive, and cost-effective in-ovo sexing solution.” He added that the money will “enable us to expand our team significantly, speed up our technical development, and accelerate our timeline to commercialization.” Omegga’s technology involves a machine placed inside incubators that uses AI-powered spectroscopy to classify eggs before day 7 of incubation.
The roll out of Respeggt’s in-ovo sexing machine in Norway’s Steinsland hatchery is already starting to change the layer landscape in Norway. According to a recent interview with Tone Steinsland, Steinsland’s General Manager, “well over 200,000 Norwegian layer hens” have already been produced using the technology. Given there are around 4.2 million layer hens in Norway, this means that nearly 5% of the flock has been in-ovo sexed. The article also reports that there has been great interest from abroad: “Steinsland will, among other things, export to Denmark, but expects that the Danes themselves will eventually also get the technology in place”
Policy Roundup
The UK government’s official Animal Welfare Committee came out in favor of in-ovo sexing as a solution to the challenge of male chick culling. The Committee was asked to conduct a thorough analysis of the technology for the UK market then form a recommendation for the UK government based on the commercial readiness of the technology, and its impact on animal welfare. Among other things, the report recommends that the governments should follow Germany’s lead in banning male chick culling, and that the government should also provide financial incentives for producers to introduce in-ovo sexing technology. It also reaffirms the current best scientific evidence that embryos develop the capacity for sentience no earlier than day 13 of incubation. You can read our full article on the report here, or the coverage in Poultry World here.
New Research
In Ovo, an in-ovo sexing technology company with machines in multiple commercial hatcheries, commissioned a survey of UK consumers to understand consumer demand for cull-free eggs on the British Isles. According to the survey, which has a nationally representative sample of 2,049 UK consumers, 69% of UK consumers would prefer cull-free eggs, and 54% of consumers would pay more. The average increased willingness-to-pay was a remarkable £0.80 more for a box of six eggs, or 13 cents more per egg. Nearly half of consumers also report that they would switch to shopping in a different supermarket if it meant they could get cull-free eggs. According to the UK government report discussed above, the anticipated production cost of eggs made with in-ovo sexing is less than a cent more per egg. This suggests a notable business opportunity for speciality egg producers and retailers in the UK to create a new high-margin egg category that can pull customers away from their competitors.
A survey by Bulgarian polling firm Sova Harris polled a nationally representative sample of 1503 Bulgarians on the topic of male chick culling. Only 12% of Bulgarians knew about the practice of chick culling, but once informed, over 90% thought that there should be a ban on the practice across the European Union.
Researchers in Thailand published an article on an in-ovo sexing technique that uses a light source and a normal camera to look at the vascular development of a developing embryo. Though the accuracy of this technique is not yet high enough to be practicable on its own, it may be possible to inexpensively use this technique during candling, which is a step already incorporated into many in-ovo sexing circuits. Data from this technique could then be combined with other in-ovo sexing methods to increase the overall accuracy of the system.
Check out our Overview page for more information on in-ovo sexing. This page will be kept up to date with new developments as soon they occur.
