Bounty Fresh perks up local egg consumption

MANILA, Philippines - Bounty Farms Inc., a division of Bounty Fresh Group of Companies, is boosting its campaign to educate more Filipinos about the health benefits of eggs in an effort to increase egg consumption in the country, reportedly the lowest among Asian countries.

Bounty Farms Inc. is taking the lead in promoting a higher consumption of table eggs, which it says to be “the best and cheapest source of healthy protein for every Filipino” since it started modernizing its facilities in Tarlac province, optimistic that “things will change for the better for the egg industry.”

“We are confident that the local egg market will continue to grow, as a result of our market promotion efforts, and that Filipinos will realize they have more health benefits to gain from eating eggs than from other protein sources, notably pork, beef and processed foods,” said Edric Chen, marketing manager, Bounty Farms Inc., as he faced the media during a media tour of the company’s modern Poultrex-Madera farm in Bamban, Tarlac.

He said the average Filipino consumes one egg per day or seven per week when the recommended healthful dose is four eggs per day. Chen said he eats an average of three eggs per day and in his latest medical check-up his cholesterol count was at 166 (in a normal range of 150 to 200) and his HDL or lipid count (which is the “good” cholesterol) is at 65.6 (versus the normal range of 45 to 65).

Price-wise, he said, eggs cost only P90 per kilo (or 15 pieces, enough to feed 15 people) as against P100 for chicken; P163 for pork; P200 for beef and P180 for fish.

Nutritionally, regular egg yokes have vitamins A, D and E plus choline. “Bounty Fresh produces specialty eggs (which cost P8 a piece) that are enriched with Omega-3, which is good for the heart, organic selenium, which has anti-cancer properties, plus it is vitamin fortified which gives more nutritional benefits to users than regular table eggs,” Chen said.

Bounty Farms, Inc. treated media to a farm tour recently, the first it ever allowed (under stringent conditions) since it obtained certifications on Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) with foreign certifying bodies to ensure that the facility is globally-competitive to produce healthy and safe quality products.

The farm has 14 ultra modern chicken houses with six more being built, a giant “anaconda conveyor” belt used to transport eggs from the farm house to the egg processing facility, a biogas facility (to be put on stream very soon), a fully automated sorting, processing and packing facility and bio-security practices of washing both people and transportation before being allowed entry into the 17-hectare farm. The entire facility employs 70 people only because it is fully mechanized.

The company also supplies fresh eggs to major supermarkets and a number of wet markets. The largest eggs and two-yoke eggs are supplied by the egg depot in Bulacan to institutional buyers, notably bakers and food caterers, which prefer these sizes, said Bienvenido “Bien” Santos, Bounty Farms Inc. sales manager.

By making their farms highly-specialized and modern, Santos said Bounty Farms wants to distinguish itself as several notches higher by producing natural specialty eggs for the local market. “We don’t want to have a repeat of the price war two years ago when egg farmers engaged in dog-eat-dog competition that forced a lot of them to close down.”

Bounty Fresh’s Madera Farm maintains egg layers at 32 to 34 weeks (the ideal age of layers) and culls the older ones but a layer can still produce (smaller and thinner shelled) eggs until 70 weeks, Santos explained.