Indiana-based producer Egg Innovations has committed to implementing in-ovo sexing technology.
According to Egg Innovations Founder and CEO John Brunnquell, the company will not be adopting the technology until 2025, but wants to start talking about its commitment now in hopes that other egg producers in the U.S. will follow suit.
“Our overall commitment is to implement the in-ovo process, and then to hopefully stimulate more colleagues in the industry and create demand,” he stated.
While Egg Innovations has not finalized which technology they will be adopting, they are anticipating the initiative will drive other in-ovo sexing companies to move into the U.S. egg industry.
“We want to create noise in the market to get one or more of the in-ovo sexing companies accelerating their move to the United States,” he stated. “At this point, none of the companies who own the technologies are operational here.”
Currently, in-ovo sexing technology is only used in Europe, and multiple countries have enacted bans on male chick culling, prohibiting the practice. Germany and France implemented chick culling bans in 2022 and have fully converted to in-ovo sexing. Italy plans to implement a ban against culling by the end of 2026.
Brunnquell added, “This commitment to in-ovo sexing is a huge step as we will be able to label our products ‘free of chick culling.’ While it's an unknown if the market is ready to embrace this, we know it's the right thing to do.”
The U.S. is looking for in-ovo sexing technology
In December 2023, the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) announced the finalists for its Egg Tech Prize competition.
The contest was created to find technology that can determine a chick’s sex before hatching, be scaled to a commercial level, help producers save money and divert unhatched eggs to alternate uses.
The three finalists’ technologies involve measuring the naturally occurring biomarker in the embryo to differentiate sexes, hyperspectral imaging and spectroscopy to develop an optical method for sexing hatching eggs and microchip-based chemical sensors that can measure volatile organic compounds released from hatching eggs.
According to the FFAR’s website, some of the qualifications the organization is looking for include:
- The technology should function on or before day eight of incubation, with lower incubation times preferred. Technologies that function pre-incubation are most preferred.
- The technology should function with 98% accuracy. Technologies that operate with higher accuracies and with all chicken breeds and colors commonly used in commercial production are preferred.
- The technology must have the potential to sex at least 15,000 eggs per hour.
- At a minimum, the approach should not reduce the hatching rate more than 1.5% from the original baseline.
It is important to note that no technology exists today that is meeting all the FFAR’s criteria.
