Free-range eggs will no longer be on sale from today and may remain unavailable for several weeks because avian flu outbreaks mean that birds have not been allowed outdoors since November.
Instead they will be labelled “barn eggs” — the name given to eggs produced by hens permanently indoors.
More than 80 outbreaks of avian flu were reported in England this winter. Birds reared for meat and eggs have been ordered to be kept indoors since November to reduce the risk of outbreaks.
A 16-week grace period for producers to continue marketing their eggs as “free range” ends today.
Following new avian flu outbreaks in the past week, officials have decided to keep the order to keep hens indoors in place.
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Free-range egg packaging can continue to be used but the words “barn eggs” must be shown on the pack, either by a sticker or label.
The avian flu season normally runs from October until March, so there could be several more weeks without free-range eggs on shop shelves.
The British Retail Consortium said that supermarkets would use signs to explain the change to consumers but that “when the current measures are lifted, eggs will go back to being free range”.
A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said:“We are experiencing our largest ever outbreak of avian flu and housing measures remain in force to protect poultry and other birds from this highly infectious and unpleasant disease.
“We continue to provide support for the poultry sector throughout this challenging time. The 16-week grace period we allowed for free-range eggs has now been exceeded, and eggs must now be marketed as ‘barn eggs’. We have worked closely with the sector and retailers to implement these changes as smoothly as possible.”
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The first human case of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in the UK was recorded in January. Alan Gosling, 79, had 160 Muscovy birds living around his home in Buckfastleigh, Devon, and is believed to have caught the virus from them.
He recovered but his birds had to be culled. The H5N1 strain has shown no sign of transmitting efficiently between people but World Health Organisation figures show that between 2003 and last year there were 863 confirmed cases in humans and more than half, 456, were fatal.
