This week was the sixth meeting of the Egg Standard Development Committe.  The soon to be Standard 4.2.5 is set to go to the Board of Food Standard Australia New Zealand  and then, all being well, to the Ministerial Council in September 2010.The new standard will not apply in New Zealand.

There may be an implementation period of up to two years to allow all relevant food businesses to put all the new requirements into operation.

One of the new requirements will be the stamping of each individual egg with a clear mark that identifies the specific processor / producer of the egg. This will allow health authorities to be able to trace eggs back in the event of a problem. This is already required in Queensland and will soon be a requirement across the country.

There will be lots of promotion about this new requirement when it comes in and it willbe based around the idea that stamped eggs are good eggs and not stamped eggs are bad. Therefore, businesses and consumers should only be buying stampedeggs in Queensland now an across the country in the future.