COMPETITIVENESS OF TABLE EGGS FROM NONCAGE HOUSING SYSTEMS

Experiences of developed countries show that production costs in non-cage housing systems for layer hens are from 8 to 59%, and in organic production over 200% higher compared to production costs in the conventional cage system. Consequently, eggs deriving from non-cage systems can be competitive only provided that the consumers are willing to pay adequately higher price for eggs produced in said way. In this paper, 720 consumers were interviewed with aim to determine to what extent they are prepared to pay higher price for eggs deriving from non-cage systems. Obtained results show that over % of consumers were willing to pay higher price for such eggs. This, however, was limited in majority of consumers (53%) to increase of price by up to 20%. This is enough to cover increased costs of production in the floor system, but not in case of free range system and organic production. Taking into consideration the fact that in EU, from year 2012, serious egg deficit can be expected due to the ban of housing of layers in battery cages, and that this deficit will probably be covered by supply from surrounding countries, it can be concluded that for certain number of producers transition to non-cage housing systems can be good business decision. For most of them, however, transition to so called enriched cages poses less risk, and in this production system they canʹt expect premium price for egg with increase of production costs not exceeding 15%