Before Christmas, Norwegian stores may run out of eggs, representatives of the largest supermarket chains warn. Since this spring, the only solution can be imports.
This will be the second “egg crisis” this year. Egg supply problems first appeared in supermarkets before Easter and the problem peaked in May.
The volume of production for the local market is determined by the “Nortura” cooperative, which calculates the demand in a certain year and provides products on this basis. This year, the predictions of the Norwegian poultry farmers did not come true again.
Import rescue
In this situation, sellers show imports as a solution to a potential crisis. A representative of one of the supermarket chains told the newspaper Aftenposten: “We sell Norwegian products whenever we can and foreign products only when necessary. This time we have to use Danish materials.”
Norway, which is not part of the European Union, applies its own sanitary and customs regulations, especially when importing food products. The import of some of them, such as potatoes, is completely prohibited, and as part of the protection against salmonella, Oslo has introduced strict requirements for foreign suppliers.
To prevent further supply problems, the Food Safety Authority (Mattilsynet) has decided that eggs from farms in other Scandinavian countries are as safe as Norwegian eggs.
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