Gary Ford

My name's Gary Ford.

I'm a policy advisor at the British Free Range Egg Producers Association.

I'm comfortable being referred to as the egg man.

Which makes me the walrus.

That's fine.

So, eggs.

Essentially, the only difference between white eggs and brown eggs is the shell colour, the contents.

are the same.

It's simple from the colour of the hen laying the egg point of view because white layers lay white eggs and brown layers or brown coloured birds lay brown eggs.

As recent as the 1970s and before,

We were predominantly white egg consumers and it was very unusual to see a brown egg.

But in the UK, brown eggs were seen as a premium in the 1970s into the 1980s.

So supply pivoted to meet that increasing consumer demand for brown eggs and hence where we are today.

But over the last few years, we have seen a significant increase, typically 5% year on year growth in the number of white layers in the national laying flock.

80% of the carbon footprint...

an egg is made up of the feed that we give the the hen and the big driver of the carbon content is soya but that's a protein it's a soya bean grown in North America South America China and that is the the main driver to the carbon footprint

Generally, they will be eating slightly less than a brown laying hen.

And that's partly a reflection of the fact that it's a slightly smaller bird laying a slightly smaller egg.

So a smaller animal takes less feed.

They produce slightly more eggs.