Dutch poultry farmers angered by safety board’s fickle advice as egg scandal spreads

03 Aug 2017 --- The Dutch poultry farmers’ trade union (Nederlandse Vakbond Pluimveehouders, or NVP) is “confused and concerned” following the Dutch food and product safety board’s conflicting advice regarding the consumption of eggs. Over 180 poultry farms have been banned from bringing their eggs to market following the discovery of a batch of eggs containing fipronil, a pesticide used to eliminate chicken lice. 

On Tuesday evening, the Dutch food and product safety board (Nederlandse Voedsel- en Warenautoriteit, or NVWA) advised consumers to avoid eating eggs until this Sunday. It has since retracted that advice, noting that they merely meant avoiding the contaminated egg batches that had been identified by product code.

“We are confused, and we know that there is no risk for the consumers. No eggs have been transported from the farms to retail since 22 July. There have been recalls and consumers can eat eggs, as much as they want. There’s absolutely no risk, and it’s very confusing for the consumer [what the] NVWA is communicating at this moment,” Aalt den Herder, General Secretary of the NVP, tells FoodIngredientsFirst. 

On Monday, the NVWA announced that it had barred 180 poultry farms from sending their eggs to market because they may be contaminated with the pesticide fipronil. The pesticide is used to control lice and fleas in poultry and is banned in the Dutch poultry sector. The NVWA is currently testing eggs, hens and chicken manure at several dozen farms for traces of the pesticide.

Dutch media reported yesterday that eggs containing “high dosages” of the pesticide may have been sold as early as June 2016, since a poultry farm based in the Dutch province of Drenthe in that month, used the services of Chickfriend, the pest control company which used the fipronil to eliminate chicken lice and is thought to be the source of the contamination. 

The food safety crisis has raised concerns about the possible export of eggs from the Netherlands, a huge producer of eggs, also causing alarm about their possible use as an ingredient.

“The Dutch poultry sector consists of about 2,000 companies, and 50 percent of them are in the laying hen industry,” den Herder states, adding that about 70 percent of the eggs are exported, with Germany being the main destination.

“I’m very concerned. I would not be surprised if it concerned about 20 to 25 percent of the poultry farms’ laying hens and I wouldn’t be surprised if several companies didn’t survive this crisis. And they can’t do anything about it. They contracted the company to clean their stables not knowing that this company used illegal substances while doing so, and it’s very sad,” den Herder says.

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Agriculture of North Rhine-Westphalia announced that it had recalled 875,000 Dutch eggs. A total of 2.9 million eggs from companies in which fipronil has been used were delivered in the German state, most of which were still in packing stations.

According to the German Bundesinstitut für Risikobewertung (BfR), the fipronil levels in these eggs are not high enough to pose a danger to public health.

“We are doing our utmost to talk with the NVWA to make it possible to give as much space to poultry farms as possible, so that they can survive. For example, let’s say that we have a poultry farm with four stables. One stable has been cleaned by this company with fipronil … the other three stables are completely clean. There is no fipronil in the eggs – that has also been proven by lab analysis – but because there is one stable on the territory on the poultry farm where fipronil has been used, no egg can leave the poultry farm. It’s a big scandal,” den Herder concludes.

By Lucy Gunn