Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to protect UK egg producers from being undercut by imported eggs owing to higher feed and energy costs in the UK.

Defra is carefully monitoring levels of imports through the UK Agriculture Market Monitoring Group, which monitors UK agricultural markets including price, supply, inputs, trade, and recent developments. Domestic production of eggs provides around 85% to 90% of home use and last year accounted for 92% of eggs used domestically

Despite the recent tightening of the egg market which is mainly the result of the war in Ukraine and a global increase in input costs for feed and energy, the supply chain is robust and we believe there remains sufficient supplies of eggs to meet consumer demand. We are not currently seeing any dramatic increases in the import of eggs. Increases in the price of eggs can also be seen impacting countries across the European Union.

The UK egg industry operates in an open market and the value of egg commodities, including the farm gate egg price, is established by those in the supply chain including farmers, processors, wholesalers, retailers, and consumers. We are working closely with all stakeholders within the supply chain on how they might reduce short-term disruption to consumers. The Minister for Food and Farming recently hosted an egg industry roundtable with representatives from across the UK egg supply chain, to consider the challenges currently facing the industry.