Scientists develop safe and inexpensive technology for disinfecting packed eggs

06 Apr 2021 --- Russian researchers have developed an inexpensive, safe and reliable surface disinfection technology for packed eggs that helps to kill bacteria, including salmonella, on eggshells.

It also helps raise healthy broiler chickens with fewer antibiotics and strong immunity to viral diseases.

The description of the technology was published in Food and Bioproducts Processing.

Packed eggs are disinfected in 50 nanoseconds (one billionth of a second) by an electron beam. Disinfection takes place in plastic containers. 

Is quality affected?
“Disinfection of the packed eggs protects eggs from subsequent contamination during storage,” says Sergey Sokovnin, a professor at Ural Federal University and Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Science. 

“We found out that five kGy is enough for disinfection. Such a dose can disinfect containers and eggshells but does not affect the physical properties of the protein, yolk and shell, or their composition.”

There are no serious technical problems with the implementation of the technology.He also says the size of the eggs does not matter.

Disinfection does not affect the quality of meat and the volume of chicks. But the difference is that healthy chickens emerge from the disinfected eggs.

Increased immunity
“Eighty-six percent of chickens from untreated eggs show signs of chronic inflammation. In chickens from irradiated eggs, this figure reached only 4 percent,” notes Sokovnin. 

“At the same time, chickens from the second group had an increased immunity to Newcastle disease, a bird’s viral disease. It means that chickens from sterilized eggs will be less sick. And it will be possible to reduce the dose of antibiotics when they are growing significantly.”

The technology also saves time for industrial manufacturers. Hatching chickens from clean eggs takes about six hours less. Instead of the usual 22 to 24 hours, chickens appear in 16-18 hours. This is extremely important as it reduces production costs.

The accelerator capacity is 108 million eggs per year, enough for a large poultry farm, Sokovnin underscores.

“It permits irradiation up to 40 eggs per second. The cost of irradiation of plastic packaging for ten eggs was €1.2 (US$1.42). If one technological line operates in one shift of 250 working days a year, the investment will be returned in five years. The main costs are staff salaries, overhead costs and equipment costs,” he continues. 

Control in poultry farms
There are no serious technical problems with the implementation of the technology. The accelerator’s small size makes it easy to integrate into existing lines to control and packaging eggs in poultry farms. 

According to scientists, the technology can also disinfect the surface of eggs of other birds and products with peels or other natural packagings such as seeds, bananas and oranges.

Innova Market Insights recently announced “Hygiene Heroics” as its fourth top packaging trend for 2021.

Edited by Elizabeth Green