Section 7: Egg uptake/person stagnates
While we have been able to present the 2005 data on egg consumption/person by country, changes in the way the FAO presents the information has meant that up-to-date regional figures are not yet available and we have had to estimate the global averages for 2004 and 2005. It should also be noted that the 2005 data applies to all eggs and not just hen eggs.
The average uptake/person worldwide could have increased a shade in 2004 to 8.7kg, but the slowdown in egg production growth in 2005 might have only just matched the increase in the human population and hence, average consumption is unlikely to have risen.
Difficult to measure
While questions can be posed regarding all statistics relating to the world’s poultry industry, by far the greatest margins of error relate to those concerned with consumption and, in particular, egg consumption. This is because a) in several instances the output figures include hatching eggs with the table eggs, b) when compared with poultrymeat a much higher proportion of production comes from backyard flocks and this is difficult to assess, and c) the “loss” in transporting from farms to consumers is higher than for most other products. A further problem emerges if the consumption data are expressed as a quantity eaten/person as distinct from the total volume consumed, because of changes in the estimate of human population numbers in countries and also, because the average egg weight differs between countries.
Hence, as with all other data, the information is best used as a guide to trends rather than of absolute levels. And, one should be especially wary of making comparisons between countries.
The estimates of egg consumption have been abstracted from the International Egg Commission’s Egg Market Review no 75 as it presents the data as the number of eggs eaten rather than on a weight basis.