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Farm eggs in jeopardy at restaurants, stores
Farm eggs — and the establishments that sell them — have been caught in a regulatory snare in the past few months.
City health inspectors have been cracking down on a city code that requires eggs that are sold in restaurants or in stores to be graded and labeled at least Grade B.
Problem is, farm eggs aren’t required to be graded.
“It’s not a change,” says Vince Delisi, a supervisor of consumer health for the Austin Travis County Health Department’s Environment and Consumer Health Unit. “It’s been part of the establishment rules.”
Under state law, grading isn’t required for eggs that are produced by a person’s own flock.
Delisi says farms can sell direct to consumers at either farmers’ markets or at their farms, but a retail establishment isn’t allowed to receive or sell eggs that aren’t graded.
So why don’t farms just have their eggs graded? Under the Texas Department of Agriculture’s Egg Law, producers who sell graded eggs also have to be licensed.
Delisi says his department has received confirmation from Texas Department of State Health Services and the Texas Department of Agriculture, as well as lawyers with the City of Austin, that its interpretation of the laws is correct.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture oversees the grading of eggs, but the Texas Department of Agriculture ensures that graded eggs are being sold under the correct label, according to Bryan Black, Assistant Commissioner for Communications for the state agriculture department.
“In Austin, there’s a growth of the buy local movement, which we certainly agree with, but we have to make sure they are in compliance with the regulations,” Delisi says.
“It’s sad that our food chain is coming to this and that we can’t support our local producers,” Emmett Fox owner of FINO and Asti restaurants, which serve food made with many locally-sourced ingredients.
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