Huh: Is Albert Heijn pulling a commercial trick when selling white eggs?
It was in the news recently: there are fewer and fewer brown eggs in supermarkets. Lidl started it, and Albert Heijn followed. White eggs were known for always being considerably cheaper than brown eggs. But that seems to be a thing of the past. At Albert Heijn, we noticed huge price increases for white eggs…
Albert Heijn announced some time ago that its own-brand eggs—and later the organic varieties too—would all be white from the beginning of July. Brown eggs will soon be impossible to find on the shelves. You already have to look hard, because for some time now around 80 percent of Albert Heijn’s egg selection has been white. This is all related to sustainability considerations.
Sustainable white eggs
Albert Heijn has a Better for Nature & Farmer programme. Part of this involves working with poultry farmers who supply white eggs. According to Albert Heijn, white eggs are more sustainable than brown eggs. ”These chickens eat less, meaning they have relatively lower CO2 emissions,” the supermarket’s website states. Incidentally, we’re talking about a mere 6%. Yep, white eggs really are different from brown eggs.
Cheaper… That’s what we thought
We do genuinely get on board with the word sustainable. But the reason we also love buying white eggs is that they are considerably cheaper than brown eggs. That’s because white-egg chickens need less feed, but also because they live longer and lay more eggs than brown-egg chickens. The cost per white egg is therefore considerably lower than the cost per brown egg.
Yet at Albert Heijn, we’re now seeing none of that lower price. In fact, the prices of white eggs seem to have risen sharply. A box of organic white eggs used to cost € 1.99; now we’re seeing prices well above that. Online, the 6 organic eggs S M L are currently being sold for € 2.69, but we also saw at Voedingsweetjes that the eggs were priced at € 3.29 in the shop… That latter price is an increase of no less than 65% compared with € 1.99. Wow! Have all the white eggs now been replaced with brown eggs, while Albert Heijn is selling them at the price of brown eggs?!
Commercial trick?
The question is: is Albert Heijn also making more profit as a result of this enormous price increase? Or is something else going on? On its website, Albert Heijn does reveal something about the poultry farmers’ earnings model: ”An important part of Better for Nature & Farmer is the earnings model. For laying-hen farmers, the earnings model consists of two parts: an open cost price (50%) and a market price (50%), with a minimum guaranteed income based on the open-price model. In addition, Albert Heijn pays for all the investments they make in sustainability.”
Are we, as consumers, paying more for the eggs because Albert Heijn has started paying the farmers more? Or is this a commercial trick because Albert Heijn is afraid of losing its profit margin now that it no longer sells more expensive brown eggs? With large supermarket chains, nothing surprises us anymore these days… I think I’ll pay another visit to the farmer himself.
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