International Egg Commission

World Egg Day Campaign: News From Previous Years

The following are reports on how some countries around the world have celebrated World Egg Day previously.

Austria

IEC Chairman takes to the sky

World Egg Day in Austria was celebrated mainly in Vienna this year. During the week two famous cooks prepared exquisite egg dishes in prime time television broadcasts and a 40 minute spot explaining the merits of eggs and World Egg Day was aired.
Two boiled and coloured eggs with salt and pepper in a clear “TWOPACK” were offered to consumers in the largest bakery chain in Austria.
On World Egg Day itself, October 13th, at a well attended press conference AMA’s (Agra Marketing Austria) Dr. Klaus Hasler, ZAG’s (Poultry Association Austria) Michael Wurzer and colleagues presented the developments of the Austrian egg market to the media.
The highlight was then the official launch of the new Austrian-Egg-Balloon “Ei-mal-täglich” which translates into “an egg a day is ok.” The launch was attended by IEC Chairman, Willi Kallhammer.
The colourful Balloon will be seen all over Austria in the months to come reminding people how healthy eggs are.

China

China’s First Celebration of World Egg Day

This year was the first time that China has taken part in World Egg Day activities, aiming to promote the consumption of eggs and raise public awareness of the ‘Healthy Egg’. The IEC Ambassador for Asia, Mr. Morten Ernst, represented the IEC at a press conference organised by CCEST, China’s Egg Association.
The press conference was attended by well-known figures within CCEST, with TV and Newspaper crews present to provide full media coverage of the event in China. The IEC World Egg Day logo was featured prominently.
Speaking at the press conference Morten Ernst gave a presentation about World Egg Day and the benefits of increasing egg consumption in China. CCEST had received letters of congratulation and support from the IEC Chairman, Willi Kallhammer, and IEC Director General, Julian Madeley.

Columbia

Tiene Huevo – Have Eggs

Colombia celebrated World Egg Day this year with a promotional campaign entitled ‘Tiene Huevo’. Literally translated into English this means ‘Have Eggs’ while in Colombia it has a double meaning as an expression which translates as ‘You’ve got the Nerve’, so it was used in Colombia in their promotion of World Egg Day as a fun word game. The campaign was created by Fenavi, Colombia’s egg association, lead by Jorge Bedoya.
A promotional advert was created which was published in the country’s most important newspapers. The translation of the Spanish writing on this advert is:
Having eggs: Healthy people have eggs - because by having eggs they can improve their memory, concentration, energy levels, help build muscle and take care of their health.
Eat eggs: If you have eggs, you have it all!!
October 13, World Egg Day

Mauritius

Eggs Fight Against Poverty

As a celebration of World Egg Day, and the fight against poverty, the team of Ceres Ltd in Mauritius decided to try an EGGSTRAORDINARY feat. They tried their hand at making 2 giant omelettes with 10,000 eggs. A large crowd gathered to encourage the staff of Ceres as they worked away in front of a frying pan that was 4 meters in diameter!
Once the giant omelettes were cooked over 3000 portions were then shared with disadvantaged people as part of their ‘Eggs for Life’ campaign.

Mexico

Mexico Champions World Egg Day

Following on from the IEC’s annual conference in Guadalajara, this year’s highly successful World Egg Day celebrations in Mexico were organised by the UNA, Mexico’s Egg Association.
The following are some of their highlights of the World Egg Day celebrations:
• A new world egg day logo was designed to help promote the day.
• Promotional articles such as pens and pencils, all bearing the new world egg day logo design, were distributed.
• Interviews were conducted through many different types of media including TV, radio, newspapers and magazines.
• A full page spread in the newspaper was dedicated to thanking and congratulating the main brand egg companies for their input.
• Over 170 people took part in a special dietary program designed to maximize the excellent nutritional potential of eggs. This event received widespread media coverage.

New Zealand

Eggs Benedict Battle

This year New Zealand combined world egg day with international chef’s day resulting in a nationwide Eggs Benedict Battle.
Budding chefs from around the country were put in to teams of community groups from seven different areas of New Zealand and pitched against each other to prepare two servings of Eggs Benedict within 15 minutes. All proceeds from the competition were donated to St Johns Ambulance.
A demonstration also took place given by Ian Thomas who showed Howard Helmer’s method of making a 60 second omelette, made using 2 eggs & 2 tablespoons of water.
Thank you to Peter High and Eggs Incorporated for all their efforts in helping to promote World Egg Day.

Spain

Eggs & Health

This year the Institute for the Study of Eggs in Spain celebrated World Egg Day, together with the celebration of its tenth year anniversary, on 5th October at the Ritz hotel in Madrid.
Awards were announced for outstanding projects in scientific research and commercial and cultural fields involving eggs. A Gold Award is awarded annually, giving public recognition to the work of those involved in the areas of gastronomy, culture and society that defend this outstanding food in the Mediterranean diet. This year the Gold award was given to the prestigious chef, Mario Sandoval who turns every-day dishes into brilliant gastronomical creations paying special attention to eggs and egg products, demonstrating that they are indispensable ingredients in the kitchen. Other awards were presented including an award to ladies in the Department of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Madrid for their scientific work on eggs.
A review was given by Dr Carmen Gomez Candle, President of the Spanish Society of Applied Basic Nutrition about the latest scientific research about the benefits of eggs on human health which is documented in a new publication ‘Eggs and Health’ .
During the week leading up to World Egg Day an interactive game “the egg, from the farm to the table” was sent to about 19,000 schools in Spain to promote eggs.
The game is an animation that shows the journey of the egg from being laid by a hen to when it arrives at the hand of the consumer, describing the controls it goes through and how it is labelled. It also gives advice on ways to use eggs in the kitchen and the health benefits.

Venezuela

Fun with eggs

This year Venezuela held their World Egg Day celebrations in a small town located within the state where over 50% of Egg Production farms are found.

Over 2000 children were given an eggy breakfast, followed by a fun day which included a car race, puppet shows, clowns, stilt walkers and activities for the children to do such as painting images on eggs etc. The whole event was broadcast by an FM Radio Station.

The day concluded with the children being given T-Shirts with the slogan “Don’t pay attention to rumors, Eat Eggs!” written on the back.

Congratulations to Nagib Budejen & Inprohuevos, Venezuela's egg association, for organizing such an excellent event, showing children the fun side of eggs.

Nigeria

Promotion & Awareness

World Egg Day was celebrated in Nigeria for the first time on 13th October 2006.

The celebrations were lead by Animal Care Services Konsult, who brought together a wide section of the Nigerian egg industry, including the Poultry Association of Nigeria.

As a result, egg industry stakeholders in Nigeria organized a highly successful media promotional campaign to create awareness of World Egg Day and to promote the consumption of eggs.

World Egg Day activities in Nigeria included:

(1) A special press conference to raise the awareness of both the media and the general public of all the activities taking place on the World Egg Day.

(2) Special promotional egg packs were sent to radio and television stations throughout Nigeria’s South West (which account for about 70% of Nigerian egg production and consumption) as gift items to listeners and viewers. The media airwaves were also awash with congratulatory messages to all egg lovers in Nigeria.

(3) Press advertisements were placed in national newspapers to congratulate egg producers and consumers.

(4) The launch of a special recipe book, including egg facts and information on the nutritional benefits of eggs.

(5) Production of bumper stickers with the inscription “Eggs, Complete Nutrition in a Shell”.

In all, the twin objectives of creating awareness for the day and promoting the consumption of shell eggs in Nigeria was achieved, raising the profile of shell eggs in consumers’ minds.

UK

Celebrate with the stars

World Egg Day 2006 featured an action-packed British Egg Week (9 – 15 October). The ‘Sporting Eggsellence’ theme, which ran throughout the week, helped to make it one of the most successful British Egg Weeks ever, having generated the support of some of Britain’s top sports heroes, editorial coverage worth almost £500,000 and seen some two million leaflets distributed at point of sale in major supermarkets across the country.

Special web pages on the britegg website were developed running international themed recipes and competitions, culminating in a ‘win a prize every hour’ draw for World Egg Day.

Backed by major British sports stars including Olympic Gold Medallist, Sir Steve Redgrave, former England footballer, Gary Lineker and rising tennis star, Andrew Murray, the campaign ignited the interest of the media, with highlights including a national tour by Howard Helmer, the world’s fastest omelette maker, who visited schools in four different regions, along with local sports stars, delivering the message first hand about healthy eating. BEIS also recruited top sports dietician Jane Griffin who helped promote the campaign on 20 radio stations.

Media coverage generated included TV programmes such as ITV’s This Morning and ITV News Central, as well as a plethora of radio interviews relaying the egg message including Capital Gold, BBC West Midlands, BBC Radio Leicester and BBC Radio Northampton. There was also an excellent response from all areas of the printed media and articles appeared across national newspapers, including The Sun, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Express, along with recipe features in leading women’s press including Hello! and Closer.

Well done to the British Egg Information Service and the British Egg Industry Council for organising such a successful campaign.

Hungary

4th International Egg Festival

Ahead of World Egg Day the Poultry Product Board of Hungary organised a press-conference, in the Royal Castle district of Budapest, to promote World Egg Day and the 4th Egg Festival in Siófok.

World Egg Day itself was celebrated by holding the 4th International Egg Festival in Siófok, the capital city of Lake Balaton. The Mayor of the city, Dr. Árpád Balázs, opened the Festival which was so popular that all hotel-rooms were booked in advance.

In addition to the Symposium on eggs, organised by the Poultry Product Board of Hungary, one of the main attractions at the festival was the creation of an enormous egg dish by top Hungarian chefs. The region was infamous in the 19th Century for highwaymen and this was the theme the chefs used recreating the favourite meal of a renowned highwayman, Angyal Bandi.

The ingredients in this dish were:

7500 eggs
1000 boiled eggs
50 kg of bacon
50 of ham
35 kg of pork fat
80 kg of Hungarian red paprika powder
80 kg of onion

Australia

Get Cracking with Eggs

‘Get cracking with Eggs’ was the headline for the celebration of World Egg Day 2006 in Australia.

The Australian Egg Corporation compiled a number of interesting statistics and recipes to get consumers ‘Egg-cited’. The aim was to try to change the beliefs in many consumers’ minds of the myths that surround eggs and to celebrate the taste and convenience of eggs on World Egg Day.

Leading up to World Egg Day numerous articles appeared in popular newspapers in Australia promoting the health benefits of eggs by promoting interesting egg facts such as:

• Eggs contain 18 different vitamins and minerals
• Australians eat 165 eggs per person per year, a total of 3 billion per year.
• Countries with the highest egg consumption per person a year include Mexico (341), Japan (330), China (320) and France (253).
• In China, eggs are a symbol of life. To announce the arrival of a new baby families paint eggs red (the colour of happiness) to bring good luck to the child.

Tasty egg recipes from across the globe were also sourced by the Australian Egg Corporation such as:

- French Oeufs en Cocotte

- Japanese Nabeyaki Udon

- Morrocan Lamb with Eggs & Almonds

To see these recipes and many others visit www.thinkegg.com - the global home page for eggs.

Source: Australian Egg Corporation Ltd