International Egg Commission

World Egg Day 2008 Round-Up

World Egg Day is a unique opportunity to help raise awareness of the benefits of eggs and the IEC has received numerous reports about how our egg colleagues celebrated World Egg Day on 10 October this year in countries across the globe.

Finland

The Finfood Egg Information association organised a high level seminar to celebrate World Egg Day this year to coincide with the 10 year journey of Finfood Egg Information.

The seminar had 80 participants and it turned out to be very successful. Main speakers in the seminar were the Finnish Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, Sirkka-Liisa Anttila; the IEC Honorary President, Willi Kallhammer and the Director General of the Finnish Food Safety Authority, Jaana Husu-Kallio (previously in the European Commission as Deputy Director General in DG Health and Consumer Protection). Several speeches were given about the nutritional values of egg and about consumption levels today.

"No one else will do it for you": As a result of Minister Anttila’s and Honorary President Kallhammer’s appeal for the importance of information services, all significant players in the Finnish egg business agreed to continue with the financing of the Finnish Egg Information association.

As a whole, despite the news about the global financial crisis, the seminar reached the media’s attention. Furthermore, the seminar material will serve Finnish Egg Information far into the future.

Austria

In recent years “World Egg Day” has become more and more recognised world-wide and this includes also being known to consumers in Austria.

This year Austria’s biggest retailer REWE distributed thousands of organic eggs to their customers and informed consumers about a special event in their product flyers. The Austrian marketing organization (AMA) produced new brochures about Eggs & Health which were presented to the public on World Egg Day while “The Austrian Poultry Federation (ZAG)” organised a press conference with the intention to inform the public about recent developments in the Austrian industry including a short focus on international challenges.

Due to the IEC’s Honorary President, Willi Kallhammer, and IEC friends around the world, ZAG is always well informed. Therefore special thanks to the IEC family!

New Zealand

Omelette Guy Cooks First Eggs Laid On World Egg Day

New Zealand’s famous egg personality – The Omelette Guy – was up with the birds to cook an omelette made with the very first eggs laid on World Egg Day, Friday, 10th October!

Plucking the first fresh eggs of the morning from Sunset Free Range Poultry Farm in Waiuku, The Omelette Guy whisked up a selection of easy, versatile and delicious omelette recipes for TVNZ’s celebrity weatherman on Breakfast News, Tamati Coffey.

Tamati broadcasted each of his weather reports throughout Friday morning from the farm, celebrating the tenth annual World Egg Day every half hour from 7.00am – 9.00am. Approximately 20 minutes of media coverage on the country’s prime breakfast television programme was secured in total with an advertising value of around $46,800.

He also asked The Omelette Guy for advice on how to make perfect poached eggs every time, interviewed Sunset Free Range Poultry Farm owners, Gareth and Anita Manning, on the different egg farming methods, and encouraged everyone to be sure and crack into World Egg Day by eating eggs!

Celebrated by dozens of countries around the globe, World Egg Day is a prime opportunity to raise awareness for the benefits of eggs.

Australia

World Egg Day promotion – “Crack The Big One”

Coinciding with World Egg Day on 10th October, a consumer competition was launched by the Australian Egg Corporation Ltd (AECL). This competition was called “Crack the Big One” and consumers could win a world trip for 2 with dinner in Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant in London. There were also 100 minor prizes up for grabs.

To promote the competition, AECL sent out an email newsletter to its existing consumer database and updated two of its print ads which ran in the competition period with a mention of the consumer competition.
The competition ran for two weeks and the prize was drawn at the end of October.

Western Australia

World Egg Day hits the streets of Perth - This is not a 'Yolk'!

In the Western Australian city, Perth, World Egg Day was celebrated with a tour of Perth’s streets in a Purple Party Bus.

Packs of freshly laid Western Australian eggs were given away throughout the day together with goodie bags and 1000 helium-filled balloons were also released, with some of them containing a voucher for a free Apple ipod shuffle.

Hungary

Hungary is host to what must be the premier event on World Egg Day. The 3 day Siofok Festival involves the whole town and attracts leading officials from both Hungary and neighbouring Austria.

Events range from a scientific seminar, to involving children in traditional music and dance performances, rounded off by the whole town coming together to produce the world’s largest egg goulash, verified by representatives from the Guinness book of Records.

Opening the festival IEC Chairman Frank Pace thanked the organisers including the Kovacs family and Peter Foldi, for the excellent concept and commitment, promoting eggs not only as nutritious and fun, but also as part of the country’s culture.

China

World Egg Day was promoted in various nation-wide newspapers and an ‘Egg Carnival’ event was organised to raise awareness of the benefits of eggs together with games and competitions being held.

USA

To kick off the United States’ World Egg Day celebration, the American Egg Board’s Howard Helmer participated in a satellite media tour from Chicago during the first week of October.

Helmer spoke with 15 news stations from cities across the country, demonstrating omelettes with Asian, Mexican, Mediterranean and Indian flair and discussing eggs’ affordability, versatility and nutritional benefits.

On October 10, Helmer discussed the holiday and eggs’ benefits on hundreds of television stations alongside the famous Mr. Food. AEB distributed an online media press kit that included World Egg Day information and $2 recipe ideas. To reach moms directly and create viral momentum, AEB created a “World Egg Day Decorator” e-card application, where consumers can decorate an egg for World Egg Day and e-mail it to family and friends.

In addition, AEB partnered with 12 popular mom bloggers, who made their own favourite egg recipes with their children, in honour of World Egg Day; they blogged about the recipes and cooking experiences and posted photos and videos. AEB’s “Breakfast Challenge” was also launched, in which a popular mom blogger challenged herself to eat breakfast every day for one month that incorporated eggs.

Germany

On World Egg Day more than 170 participants attended a symposium arranged by NieKE (Lower Saxony Competence Center for the Food Industries) together with the Veterinary College of Hannover with the German title: "Zukunftsperspektiven für die Eiererzeugung - Märkte - Lebensmittelsicherheit - Tiergerechtheit" which means: "Future Perspectives for the Egg Production - Markets - Food safety - Animal welfare".

On the day before World Egg Day the IKL (Informationskreis Legehennenhaltung - Egg Production Information Center) arranged an award ceremony in Hannover where the best eggproducers, the best in life´s work and the best junior got the award "Gallus".

Balloons were also launched promoting World Egg Day and eggs as a good source of vitamins and proteins.

The Netherlands

The town of Barneveld, located in the centre of the Netherlands, is the national centre of poultry and egg production.

Barneveld’s history, and present day involvement in the egg industry has made this town the best and most appropriate hosts for The National Poultry Museum (“Pluimveemuseum”). For the first time in history several activities took place not only on World Egg Day itself, but also the days before and the week following.

Earlier this year children from 13 Schools were eager to get creative with eggs. They received 1200 eggs and many egg cartons to make creative ‘Egg-Art’. This art was on display for public viewing though the World Egg Day celebrations in an exposition at the “Pluimveemuseum”.

On Saturday, 11th October, several egg producers and packers in the area of Barneveld opened their doors to the public. There was also a bike tour to visit the farm.

In the Pluimveemuseum special egg lectures were given by eggsperts, also eggsquisite Egg tapas was available for tasting. In Barneveld’s Market Square a renowned chef prepared scrambled eggs in a special and unique way. As an added touch, three different Shanty Choirs sang in the main streets of the town. Restaurants participated by offering 3 special Chicken and Egg courses. This will continued through the following week, providing good exposure and awareness for World Egg Day and the egg industry, as this was a holiday week in the Netherlands.

To promote these events several advertorials about eggs, egg producers and recipes were placed in local newspapers.

UK

Lion Quality Eggs Provide the Winning Recipe for World Egg Day

World Egg Day 2008 was a major feature within an action-packed British Egg Week.

Promotion for World Egg Day started months ago with one-to-one visits to leading women’s magazines with a series of specially developed international recipes. The recipes ranged from Spicy Indian Scrambled Egg to Shakshouka with Pepper. Regional media were also targeted with the recipes, as the UK celebrated World Egg Day. Coverage was generated in several leading magazines and newspapers including The Times, Hello! and Best.

The international egg dishes were featured in the run-up to World Egg Day on the British Egg Industry Council’s consumer website – www.eggrecipes.co.uk, giving consumers the chance to try them first hand.

For World Egg Day itself, breakfast show presenters were given a taste of international egg cuisine with 6am deliveries to all major UK radio stations. The presenters were able to enjoy a tasty Spanish tortilla, while being presented with a series of fascinating facts about eggs around the world. World Egg Day was mentioned on the UK’s most listened to radio station, Radio 2, as well as on national radio stations XFM, Heart FM and BBC Radio 5.

Mexico

Once again Mexico proved to be a leader on World Egg Day. Some of the various activities and celebrations that took place in 2008 are outlined below:

1. Logo Development: As with every year a logo was developed to celebrate World Egg Day. This was a fun image incorporating the flag of Mexico.

2. Conference: A conference was held on World Egg Day, 10 October in Mexico City. There were more than 140 participants all of whom were given World Egg Day branded T-shirts, pens, note pads and recipe books.

The conference also saw the debut performance of Jose Manuel Samperio’s adaptation of Louis Armstong’s song ‘What a Wonderful World’ that he entitled ‘What a Wonderful Egg’.

3. Interviews: Throughout the week leading up to World Egg Day a campaign was promoted through the means of interviews on the television, radio and in the press with the participation of Advisors of the National Institute.

4. Egg Giveaways: One of more popular radio stations in Mexico City held a big egg giveaway to those that tuned in, namely housewives, and 400 packages were given away per day from 6 to 10 October. This activity provided very intense promotion of World Egg Day as it was mentioned many times.

Other promotional activities including 20-second slots on the radio which referred to the benefits of eating eggs; articles in newspapers from 4 cities in Mexico were published: Mexico City, Guadalajara, Puebla and Monterrey; official notices were also submitted to the Press in support of the World Egg Day campaign.

Venezuela

Venezuela continues to take part in World Egg Day and to be a leading promoter of eggs in Latin America.

Inprohuevos, the national institute for egg promotion in Venezuela, ran adverts promoting the benefits of eggs containing vitamins, proteins and minerals and also promoted the day with a one page spread in a prestigious national newspaper.