Processing barn eggs into liquid egg and egg powder Update on the projectThe project has been successfully completed. All 44 employees have been contracted with good working conditions and salaries. The company has built barn egg farm buildings according to European standards, as such improving the animal welfare situation of layer hens and providing a good example in Bolivia. In total, 5 contract farmers are supplying eggs to the joint venture Ovoprot International SRL, providing good income for them. The egg processing plant is functioning since 2017. It is expected that the plant will obtain the HACCP certification by January 2019. Cooperation between the two partners is very good. In 2019, partners will invest in two additional barns of 30,000 layer hens with funding of a commercial bank in Bolivia and it will start extending the number of outgrowers.DescriptionIndustrial processing of fresh eggs into pasteurized and liquid egg products is a new industry in Bolivia. Local food industry now relies using raw eggs in shell, which poses serious food safety risks. Eggs and egg-containing foods have been identified as the vehicle in roughly 80% of known-source Salmonella infections. The production of pasteurized liquid and dried egg products in Bolivia will give a major boost to the local food industry as it will result in safer consumer food products and a more efficient production process. Bolivia imported 211 tonnes of powdered egg in 2012. The applicant is Ovoprot International S.A., the leading egg processing company in Argentina. The first local partner is Avicola Modelo Bolivia S.R.L.. Avicola Modelo has its own egg production farm (20,000 laying hens), a hatchery and a feed production plant. The third partner, Granja San Miguel "Cesar Cuadros RAU", has a production capacity of 92,000 laying hens.The partners will establish a joint venture. The project is located in Santa Cruz de la Sierra.Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)The contract farmers will produce according to the EU-Directive 1999/74 and implement good barn egg farming practices to ensure the hens' welfare. The farm workers' health and safety will be safeguarded and the workers will be offered good employment conditions.The farms will not pollute the environment. Conditions defining these issues will be included in the contracts signed with the contract farmers.Impact•	Employment and working conditionsThe joint venture will hire its personnel with indefinite labour contracts and will pay living wages to its entire staff.•	Innovation/Transfer of knowledgeThe project is to establish a liquid and dried egg processing plant. This technology is new for Bolivia.The to be established barn egg farm will comply with the standards defined by the EU-directive 1999/74.•	Chain effectsImpact on local suppliersThe contract farmers will be trained to improve their performance. Also, other barn egg farmers interested in automated barn farming will be included in the training programme.The contract farmers will have a guaranteed off-take of their barn egg production. Thanks to the stable demand, the contract farmers will be less vulnerable to the market glut experienced during the school holidays, especially in the December-February period.Other suppliers include transport companies that bring the shell eggs to the processing plant and from the processing plant to the joint venture's clients.Impact on local customers or consumersThe joint venture's clients will benefit from having access to pasteurized egg products, rather than having no alternative but to use raw shell eggs for their production processes. Using raw eggs in food manufacturing processes creates food safety risks and is very inefficient.Additionally, the food manufacturing companies will benefit from a standard quality product with increased stability and uniformity. Furthermore, liquid and dried egg products are easier to use, the application of product portions can be controlled better and less storage space is required than in case of raw shell eggs.•	Impact on the sectorThe processing plant will be the first company that will process eggs into value added products for the food manufacturing industry in Bolivia. Based on experiences around the world, it can be expected that once the concept has been introduced that the food processing industry in Bolivia will widely adopt the dried and liquid egg products from the joint venture company.Also, for the poultry sector supplying eggs for industrial processing, the project will have a major impact. Egg prices will be stabilised by the joint venture’s capacity to absorb more eggs during periods of market glut.Furthermore, the project will demonstrate an automated barn egg farming system as an alternative to1.	the inefficient manual production of small producers and2.	the animal unfriendly caged production by large producers.The negative aspects of battery cages on the welfare of the laying hens is well documented. For this reason, the European Commission issued a directive stating that cage farming is no longer allowed in the EU poultry sector. In Europe, the phasing out of battery cage farming took a considerable period due to the reluctance of the farming sector to adopt alternative layer farming systems that provide better animal welfare conditions.As in Europe, it will take time for poultry farmers in Bolivia to convert to the modernised layer farming systems that combine efficiency, quality and food safety, animal welfare and profitability. The project will be an important example to small and large scale barn egg farmers showing the feasibility to produce barn eggs at a larger automated scale.Besides the contract farmers, the partners will train at least 10 additional barn egg farmers in order to improve their farming practices. This programme will be implemented in cooperation with the egg farmers association of Santa Cruz (Asociación de Avicultores de Santa Cruz).The joint venture will also closely cooperate with the national food safety agency SENASAG (Servicio Nacional de Sanidad Agropecuaria e Inocuidad Alimentaria).•	EnvironmentThe project will have a positive impact on the animal welfare situation in the Bolivian poultry farming sector. The use of battery cages is still common in the South American layer farming sector.The project partners will introduce an automated barn egg farming system as an animal friendly alternative to battery cages and as an automated alternative for egg farmers that today only have basic facilities.The 'guano' (chicken litter) will be collected and sold as organic fertilizer. This manure is rich in nitrogen and phosphate and makes a good alternative to chemical fertilizers. To avoid contamination the chicken manure will be transported away from the poultry farms.•	Position of womenThe joint venture partners support equal opportunities for female workers. In total one third of the joint venture's employees will be female workers. In terms of salary levels, training, promotion and other employment conditions, the female workers will enjoy the same conditions of employment as their male colleagues.•	Impact on food safetyThe establishment of an egg processing factory for the production of pasteurized dried and liquid egg products will have a positive impact on the food processing industry and consumers in Bolivia. The primary risk associated with raw eggs is food borne illness caused by Salmonella enteritidis bacteria.The process of pasteurizing eggs eliminates Salmonella and also destroys Avian Flu virus. Eggs are used in many different processed food products and the access to pasteurized dried and liquid eggs will give an economic boost to the food industry in Bolivia. The use of pasteurized eggs will ensure that food safety levels will go up and that food related health problems will diminish. Eggs are an excellent and very affordable source of animal protein and the processed eggs are used in many different industries. To process fresh eggs into pasteurised and liquid egg products with a production volume of 75 tonnes egg powder and 820 tonnes liquid egg.