Now '100 percent' vegetarian eggs

ERODE (Tamil Nadu): Here's some good news for diehard vegetarians who may yet like to tuck in some eggs. India's leading egg powder manufacturer and exporter will launch a '100 percent vegetarian egg' in the coming year.

"We will commercially launch the completely 100 percent vegetarian eggs both in the domestic market and also export them across the world in a couple of months from now," S Hariharan, general manager, operations of SKM Egg Products Ltd, said.

The company is already exporting 100 percent vegetarian egg powder, egg yolk powder and egg albumen powder to as many as 27 countries in the world, including Europe and Japan.

So what is a vegetarian egg?

Chicks aged between zero and eight weeks are brought to poultry farms and bred till up to 72 weeks when they become 'layers'.

Normally, each layer lays about 300 eggs in poultry farms. However, these eggs are not totally vegetarian because the hens are fed fishmeal (dry fish powder) as a protein supplement.

However, SKM Egg Products Ltd, located aptly on the Gandhiji Road in Erode, claims all the 'egg-laying birds' in its contract farms are not fed any 'animal-based food'.

Instead of fishmeal, soya powder is added to the poultry feed as the protein supplement.

"Hence, eggs produced in our contract farms are fully vegetarian," asserts Hariharan.

But this company, which buoyantly ended last fiscal (2006-07) with a Rs.845-million ($21.4 million) turnover, did not hit upon the vegetarian egg concept for the sheer sake of vegetarianism.

It was for commercial reasons to meet the strict stipulations of the export market.

The eggs laid by the hens fed on fishmeal contained antibiotic residues in excess of the limits (0.5 parts per billion) set by European countries. Hence, the company substituted soya for fish powder. Thus the 100 percent vegetarian egg was born.

Recently, SKM, which exported 4,500 tonnes of egg powder last year, set up its own poultry farm with nearly 1.5 million chicks.

However, as of now, the company largely sources the "vegetarian eggs" from nearby Namakkal, which is southern India's "egg land".

With over 700 poultry farms, Namakkal produces 22.5 million eggs every day, which is 14 percent of the country's egg production.

"If milk is vegetarian, then all commercially produced eggs in our farms are vegetarian. Only, most of us use fish feed for the hens because soya feed is expensive," says Namakkal Poultry Feeds and Egg Producers Association president Nallathambi.

So the next time you gobble up an egg pastry, just don't feel guilty.