(VAN) Following nearly 2 years of shortage, the Ukrainian egg market has started experiencing oversupply, Yevhen Khailov, sales director of Incuba, a local egg manufacturer, revealed. The surplus is felt despite record-breaking exports.

Ukraine is now manufacturing over 100 million eggs per month, Khailov told a local publication, Our Poultry Farming. Production has exceeded demand as multiple farmers struggled to ramp up production, as the market has been in short supply in recent years. Too many companies boosted the number of laying hens, Khailov added.

Similar situations have already happened in the past, but now farmers are limited in their opportunities to lower their laying hen population as the poultry meat market is fully saturated, too, Khailov stated.

“In addition, long power outages pose a problem for farms, making it difficult to slaughter birds and store meat,” he said.

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Rising exports

In the meantime, Ukrainian egg exports continue to rise. During the first half of 2024, sales to foreign customers reached 36,980 tonnes against 29,700 tonnes in the previous year, the official statistical data showed. The growth happened as industrial egg farming in Ukraine is recovering, the Union of Poultry Farmers of Ukraine said in a statement.

The largest importers of Ukrainian eggs were European countries, primarily Poland and Italy, as well as Singapore, the UAE and Israel, the organisation said.

Egg prices in Ukraine may surge over the next few months as the country is braced for extended blackouts during the heating season. DTEK, the country’s largest power generation company, estimated that power outages may last up to 20 hours per day, as a substantial share of the Ukrainian energy system is in ruins.

European farmer woes

An egg surplus could push Ukrainian farmers to increase exports amid repeated complaints from European farmers over overwhelming imports from Ukraine. Over the past few years, Latvia saw egg imports nearly quadrupling, Janis Gaigals, head of the Latvian Poultry Association, stated in an interview with Latvian Radio.

Gaigals said his organisation has recently come up with a new idea on how to regulate poultry imports from Ukraine. “According to poultry farmers, it would be fair if the import duty [on Ukrainian eggs] were not abolished but would be brought to a level that would balance the conditions of production and not distort the market. And that all collected import duties would be transferred to the Ukrainian government. Then it would be direct economic support,” Gaigals explained.

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(PW)