An egg is one of the world's simplest foods. But increasingly, it is becoming something else: a raw material that can be processed, separated, standardised and, in the most advanced laboratories, reproduced as individual proteins.

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In Britain, health authorities are investigating a Salmonella Enteritidis outbreak that has sickened 207 people and killed one. In the United States, biotechnology companies are scaling production of egg proteins made through fermentation rather than taken from chickens.

And across Africa, businesses are taking a more immediate step: processing the eggs already being produced into liquid egg, yolk, albumen and powder.

These are not the same developments. But together they reveal how the value of an egg is changing. And they raise a question for a continent that produces millions of tonnes of eggs each year:

Can Africa capture more of the value created after the egg leaves the farm?

As the industry grows, so do the risks

The latest warning comes from Britain. The UK Health Security Agency identified an increase in Salmonella Enteritidis infections caused by a single strain and, by 18 August, had recorded 207 cases between 11 August 2025 and 1 August 2026.

Whole-genome sequencing showed the cases belonged to the same five-single-nucleotide-polymorphism cluster. One person had died. Investigators were examining a possible connection with imported eggs. The investigation was continuing.  The significance is not that eggs are inherently dangerous, or that imported eggs are necessarily unsafe.

It is that modern food systems are complicated. An egg can pass through farmers, collectors, distributors, processors, restaurants and food manufacturers before it reaches the consumer. When people become ill, tracing the source requires increasingly sophisticated surveillance.

The British outbreak shows one side of the modern egg industry: the more complex the supply chain becomes, the more important traceability and food-safety controls become.

But elsewhere, the transformation is going in a very different direction.

The race to make egg protein without chickens

In the United States, biotechnology companies are asking a more fundamental question:

What if you only needed the protein?

The EVERY Company uses precision fermentation to produce egg proteins. The process does not create a chicken egg in a laboratory.

Instead, genetic instructions for a desired egg protein are introduced into microorganisms. They are grown in fermentation tanks and produce the target protein, which is then separated and processed into an ingredient.

EVERY's OvoPro is designed to provide some of the functions that make conventional egg white valuable to food manufacturers, including binding, gelling, foaming and whipping.

The company has moved beyond demonstrations. In July, EVERY announced a partnership with agricultural-processing giant ADM to produce OvoPro at commercial scale at ADM's facility in Iowa. (ADM)

In June, EVERY and pharmaceutical manufacturer Huvepharma announced a fourfold expansion of production capacity. And in March, an OvoPro-based egg-white powder went on sale directly to US consumers.

The important development is therefore not the novelty of a “lab-grown egg”. It is the emergence of egg protein as a manufactured industrial ingredient.

Can the economics compete with eggs?

The commercial announcements also come with a caveat. A technology reaching industrial production does not automatically mean it will displace conventional eggs. Economics still have to work.

EVERY says its technology can provide a more stable supply of egg protein and avoid some of the volatility associated with poultry disease, feed costs and conventional egg supply chains. The company has also argued that its powdered ingredients can simplify storage and reduce reliance on cold chains. 

Those are claims from the company, not independently established proof that precision-fermented egg proteins are already cheaper or better across the food system.

There are other unanswered questions. Will manufacturers consistently choose fermented proteins if conventional eggs remain cheaper?

How quickly will consumers accept ingredients they may regard as unfamiliar? How will different countries regulate them?

And what happens to farmers if a meaningful share of industrial demand for egg protein eventually shifts away from poultry?

Even the environmental case needs to be tested rather than assumed. Precision fermentation may reduce some land, livestock and supply-chain pressures, but the overall impact depends on the energy, inputs and infrastructure used to produce the protein at scale.

Africa's next egg opportunity may be processing

Africa does not need to invent an egg industry. It already has one. The Food and Agriculture Organization's latest production data cover agricultural output through 2024, when global egg production reached about 100 million tonnes, 94% of its hen eggs. 

Across Africa, major producers include Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa. Kenya's 2025 agriculture production report recorded 221.7 million trays of eggs in 2024, worth KSh103.1bn, up 13.9% in volume and 14.3% in value on the previous year. 

But production is only the first part of the value chain. Much of the continent's output is still sold as shell eggs. That means the product reaches the market in almost the same form in which it left the farm.

Processing creates another possibility. The same egg can become a liquid whole egg, separated yolk or white, or dried powder. It can then be sold not simply as food for a household, but as an ingredient for a bakery, hotel, restaurant or manufacturer.

Uganda offers a glimpse of what comes next

Uganda offers one of the clearest African examples. Pristine Foods produces pasteurized liquid whole egg, egg white and yolk, as well as dried egg powders. It says more than 90% of its raw materials are sourced locally and that it has trained more than 1,000 farmers since 2022. 

That is a significant shift in what is being sold. The farmer produces an egg. The processor turns it into an ingredient.

The ingredient can then enter another manufacturing process. The company is also certified to ISO 22000:2018 food-safety management standards and says its products carry Uganda National Bureau of Standards certifications.

Africa is not waiting for Silicon Valley to invent the idea of food processing. The technology for extracting more value from conventional eggs already exists on the continent. The question is whether it can expand.

Kenya is also pushing beyond the shell

At Dheiton Ventures Ltd in Nyahururu, Kenya, food scientist Ruttoh Onesmus works on that challenge from within the egg-processing industry. His interest in liquid eggs began after he encountered processed egg products while in the Netherlands.

What struck him was how ordinary liquid egg and egg powder were within an established food industry there. He wondered why similar products were not more widely available in Kenya. At the Nyahururu facility, Ruttoh told me, eggs are inspected and candled before being broken. The liquid is then pasteurized and homogenized before packaging.

Imagine a farm with 10,000 birds. That means this farm produces about 8,000 to 9,000 eggs every day. So, if that person does not find a market for their eggs in one week, that flock will not be able to eat because the farmer depends on the eggs for money to buy the feed.

The point is not simply to change the appearance of an egg. For a commercial kitchen using hundreds or thousands of eggs, a ready-to-use liquid ingredient can reduce the labour involved in cracking shells and provide a more standardized product. Ruttoh also described the possibility of finding uses for what would otherwise be waste, including processing eggshells into powder.

His account illustrates the logic of value addition at a relatively small scale. But it also exposes the difficulty of scaling the model. A processing plant needs a dependable supply of suitable eggs, reliable power, refrigeration, equipment, quality control, capital and customers. The factory cannot solve those problems by itself.

Processing needs more than an egg supply

South Africa offers evidence of what a more established processing industry can look like. EggTech has operated since 2004 and produces liquid and frozen whole egg, yolk and albumen from a single facility. Its eggs are broken, pasteurized, frozen, packaged and distributed nationally, with exports also part of the business. 

Its model also shows why food safety is inseparable from processing. EggTech says suppliers are audited, products undergo microbiological testing and its facility operates under food-safety standards including HACCP and FSSC 22000-related systems. 

The lesson for countries trying to build similar industries is uncomfortable. Buying an egg breaker is the easy part. Building the system around it is harder.

The egg value addition space is enough for all of us. That one I can tell you for sure. It's enough for all of us.

Who gets to profit from the next generation of eggs?

This is where the African story becomes bigger than poultry. There are now at least three possible levels of the egg economy.

The farm: produce the egg.

The processor: turn it into a more useful, standardized ingredient.

The biotechnology company: produce individual egg proteins without requiring a chicken to produce the egg.

The US is investing heavily in the third. Companies such as EVERY are developing proprietary technology and partnering with major industrial manufacturers to scale it. 

Africa has a more immediate advantage. It already has the farmers and the raw material. But that advantage is not permanent. If African countries fail to build processing capacity, they risk remaining suppliers of agricultural commodities while importing higher-value food ingredients.

To be featured in The Next 54 by AfricaPro24, a showcase of young Africans, innovators, founders, creators, researchers and changemakers shaping the continent’s future, email info@africapro24.com. To follow Ruttoh’s work in dairy and egg value addition, connect with him on LinkedIn.