A cracking good idea for eggs

By Keith Perry

A poultry firm has built the country's first egg-washing machine to help it crack the multimillion-dollar American export market.

Ten years ago, Pukekohe-based Free Range Eggs of New Zealand (Frenz) became the first and only producer in the world to export eggs to the United States. It now sells more than 1.5 million airfreighted eggs a year to California alone.

But manual methods of cleaning and packaging the eggs were unable to keep pace with demand and tight airfreight deadlines. The Americans impose tough sanitising and inspection controls.

Now the firm, in conjunction with automation engineer Werner Friedrich of Industrial Research, has turned to robot technology to solve the problem.

"One of the main obstacles we had to overcome was the high humidity in Auckland," said Mr Friedrich. "This made drying the eggs after washing a problem. The eggs need to be completely dry before the next stage, when a thin film of oil is applied to the egg to protect the pores, replacing the natural oil the washing has removed."

The new machinery, adapted from American technology, now blow-dries the eggs and recoats the shells with a protective film before shining a light source behind the shells to show up cracks and defects.