New Bill Changes Egg Safety Rules to Boost Supply: What It Means for Your Breakfast

The aptly named “Lowering Egg Prices Act of 2025” is a targeted piece of legislation designed to increase the supply of eggs available for processing into liquid egg products—think the cartons of egg whites or the industrial-sized vats used in bakeries and food manufacturing. Immediately upon enactment, the bill removes an existing federal regulation (section 118.4(e) of title 21, Code of Federal Regulations) that currently applies to shell eggs, making it inapplicable to surplus broiler hatching eggs when they are sold to an “egg breaker.” These eggs are specifically those intended for use by hatcheries to produce baby chicks for meat, and an egg breaker is a facility that processes shell eggs into bulk liquid product.

The Regulatory Shell Game: Relaxing Storage Rules

This bill’s main goal is to unlock a new supply of eggs by utilizing those that are surplus from the broiler hatching industry. Hatching eggs are often stored differently than table eggs because they are kept at conditions suitable for incubation, not necessarily for long-term food safety storage. The bill mandates that within 180 days, the FDA (through the Secretary of Health and Human Services and in consultation with the USDA) must write a new rule. This new rule must allow surplus broiler hatching eggs to be stored at temperatures and for time periods compatible with hatching chick conditions before being sold to egg breakers for processing. Essentially, it’s a regulatory workaround to allow eggs previously destined for the trash or other uses to enter the food supply.

Who Benefits and Who Takes the Risk?

For food manufacturers and egg breakers, this is a clear win. They get access to a cheaper, more abundant source of raw material, which could potentially lead to lower prices for consumers buying liquid egg products. It also reduces waste for the broiler industry. However, the immediate removal of the existing safety regulation before the new rule is written creates a temporary regulatory gap for these specific eggs, and the mandate to align storage rules with “hatching chick conditions” raises a yellow flag.

Think of it this way: the conditions needed to keep an egg viable to hatch a chick (which involves specific temperatures and humidity) are not necessarily the optimal conditions for keeping that egg safe for human consumption before it’s pasteurized and processed. The current rules are designed to prevent bacterial growth. The new rule must balance the industry’s need for relaxed storage with the FDA’s need to ensure food safety under the Egg Products Inspection Act. If the new standards aren't stringent enough, we could see a slight, but real, increase in food safety risk for liquid egg products, which are used everywhere from frozen dinners to school cafeterias. The bill is trying to lower prices, but we need to keep an eye on how the FDA writes the fine print over the next six months—because that’s where the actual food safety standards will be set.