INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Schools across Indiana are cutting back on the amount of eggs used to feed students, in response to a drop in egg production caused by avian influenza wiping out millions of chickens and turkeys across parts of the nation.
Eggs, for example, are being eliminated from the breakfast menus in public school corporations such as La Porte in the northwestern part of Indiana. The Indiana Department of Education has notified all school districts in the state about the potential for an egg shortage during the upcoming school year based on information obtained from the USDA.
The agency in a letter to education officials stated not just eggs, but also turkey, are in shorter supply and USDA vendors presently "do not have sufficient quantities" to offer the USDA for its program that feeds the nation’s schoolchildren. In addition, some food suppliers have made it known they’re limiting the number of certain egg and turkey products, to amounts schools received the previous year.
To combat the potential shortage, foodservice programs like the one in La Porte have taken eggs totally off the breakfast menu, at least for now. La Porte schools will not offer eggs in August or September and the ban could be extended if egg supplies do not improve, said Judy Keim, director of foodservice for the La Porte School Corp.
Specifically, items like scrambled eggs, omelets and breakfast sandwiches containing eggs have been replaced with more varieties of waffles and pancakes at a school corporation that has up to 6,000 mouths to feed daily. Brainstorming is also being done for other foods to further stretch the egg supply and keep down costs.
"We’re trying to come up with neat ideas that we can fill in for a couple of months until we’re sure where we stand with our eggs, then we can put them back on our menu," said Keim.
She’s also received notice from Tyson, one of its food suppliers, that ways of making the breading for chicken and other items with fewer eggs are being developed to help bring down prices on food that have gone up from the strain on egg supplies.
Schools in Indiana have been notified by Jennie-O Turkey Store that it has imposed a cap on turkey, to amounts provided to them last year. "We have not raised our prices to our students this year and do not plan on doing so, but we’re just going to be cautious and try to make sure they get the best we can get for our buck," Keim said.
So far, she has not been notified of any limits on chicken for the upcoming school year, but her staff is ready to offer meals containing more beef and vegetables in the event of that happening.
Avian influenza since December has killed more than 40 million chickens and turkeys, primarily in the Midwest, and the door recently swung open to start importing eggs again from the Netherlands to help egg supplies. Canada is the only other country the United States allows for egg imports.
According to the United Egg Producers (UEP), shell egg production nationwide totaled 8 million during May, down 5 percent from the previous year. The table egg flock size on May 1 was at 296 million layers, compared to 270 million on June 1 because of the avian influenza outbreak.
Iowa is the top egg-producing state, with 54,876 layers, followed by Ohio with 30,826 layers and Indiana at 25,204. Pennsylvania and Texas are next, with nearly 40,000 layers combined. The top five egg-producing states have 49 percent of all the layers in the nation, according to UEP.
