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Of the largest egg-producing companies in Latin America, 50% are located in Brazil, accounting for just over 10% of all global production. In 2021, of the 55.5 billion eggs produced, 99.54% were destined for domestic consumption, demonstrating a significant increase in egg consumption, reaching 257 units of eggs per inhabitant. According to the report published by ABPA in 2023, between 2018 and 2022 the Brazilian population’s per capita egg consumption increased by just over 35%.
The increase in egg consumption in 2021 may be related to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led many consumers to look for more accessible and affordable sources of animal protein.
In situations of budget constraints, as has been the case during the pandemic, consumers tend to select foods with lower added value, which may explain the increase in demand for eggs.
Eggs are a source of protein with a high biological value that can be compared to breast milk in terms of nutritional composition, which means that a large part of all the amino acids that make up this food will be used efficiently by the body.
As well as being a source of protein, eggs 2020). are also a source of unsaturated fatty acids, minerals and vitamins (Table 1).
Table 1. Detailed nutritional composition of chicken eggs in nature. Adapted from ANSES-CIQUAL (2022).
Consumer choice is driven by intrinsic characteristics such as texture, appearance and aroma, by extrinsic product characteristics such as labeling and packaging, or by sociocultural factors such as habits, beliefs or trust in the production industry.
Despite this, sensory properties such as shell, egg size and yolk color are the main characteristics that determine the consumer’s choice of product (Rondoni et al., 2020).
The color of the yolk can vary from a pale yellow to an intense orange, and to determine this quickly, a practical tool can be used, which is to compare the color of the yolk in natura with a range of colors with a scale of 1 to 16 shades from yellow to orange (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Color fan for quick comparison of yolk coloration (Source: DSM YolkFan™).
Among the three sensory characteristics mentioned above, we will discuss in the course of this technical material the use of some natural ingredients in poultry feed and their effect on yolk coloration.
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