News

No impact as of yet on egg demand

Publicity about the avian influenza outbreak does not appear, as of yet, to be impacting consumer demand for eggs and other poultry products.

“We’ve been certainly monitoring consumer and consumption trends and we haven’t seen any fall-off there, which is good. But we’re still early in the process,” says Randy Olson, executive director of the Iowa Poultry Association and Iowa Egg Council.  “We’ve been getting a lot of news coverage on this from coast to coast and hopefully the message is getting out there that the food is safe.”

Olson says nearly one-third of Iowa’s egg laying hen population has been afflicted with the H5N2 virus.  Those birds either have been or are in the process of being euthanized.

AUDIO: Randy Olson