Second US Egg Producer Announces In-Ovo Sexing, Marking the Beginning of a New Trend in American Egg Production
Today, the egg producer Kipster announced that they will begin to use in-ovo sexing technology later this Fall. This announcement comes two months after another US egg company, Egg Innovations, made a similar commitment, marking the beginning of a new trend in American egg production. Over the last few years, numerous American companies such as Vital Farms, Unilever, and UNFI Foods had committed to using in-ovo sexing once the technology became commercially available in the US. These recent announcements from Kipster and Egg Innovations have now put a timeline on this becoming a reality.
Kipster, a Dutch specialty egg producer, entered the US market 2022 in partnership with Kroger’s Simple Truth brand. Kipster employs a number of innovative practices that make them uniquely positioned in the US egg industry. For example, they live stream operations in their cage-free egg facility so that consumers have greater transparency into their practices, and they employ feed upcycling and carbon offsets so that their eggs are “carbon neutral.”
Prior to this announcement Kipster already practiced alternatives to male chick culling. In Europe, they employ a practice called “male rearing,” where they raise roosters of the layer breed and sell their meat to consumers as a premium product. However, citing “lack of critical infrastructure and retail market for rooster meat in the U.S.” they are now electing to use in-ovo sexing given its immediate availability and cost effectiveness.
This decision mirrors trends in Europe where in-ovo sexing is beating male rearing in the market. According to the German supply chain certified KAT, in-ovo sexing accounted for only 30% of German retail eggs in 2022, but has since grown to 70% at the end of 2023. Dietmar Tepe, the managing director of KAT, said “it can be assumed that in-ovo sexing will be the dominant method for avoiding chick killing in the future.”
The reason that in-ovo sexing has proven dominant over raising male chicks for meat is that ultimately the latter is more expensive and less sustainable. Because layer chickens are optimized for egg production, raising them for meat has a number of challenges. First, they require more food and resources to produce the same amount of meat as a broiler chicken would because they grow slower. Second, the meat of a layer breed also tastes different than that produced by a broiler chicken. Finally, the size of layer males slaughtered for meat is different from broilers, which makes them difficult to slaughter using equipment at a standard slaughterhouse. For these reasons, the meat is more expensive, less sustainable, and often struggles to find a market of interested consumers. A study from the University of Hohenheim found that raising male chicks in the egg industry for meat would use three times the land, emit three times as much CO2 equivalent, and use 72% more water compared to conventional broilers. In-ovo sexing, in contrast, is more sustainable and now costs less than one cent per table egg.
With two US egg producers announcing the use of in-ovo sexing within such a short time, it’s likely that we’re seeing the beginnings of a new trend in American egg production. In the short-term, avoiding male chick culling will serve as a strong brand differentiator for companies electing to use it. In the longer-term, in-ovo sexing can unlock other efficiencies for egg producers like in-ovo vaccination and on-farm hatching that will help defray its added cost.
