British Lion Mark
The British Lion mark on egg shells and egg boxes means that the eggs have been produced to the highest standards of food safety.
The Lion Quality Code of Practice was launched in 1998 and includes compulsory vaccination against Salmonella Enteritidis of all pullets destined for Lion egg-producing flocks, independent auditing, full traceability of hens, eggs and feed and a "best-before" date stamped on the shell and pack, as well as on-farm stamping of eggs and packing station hygiene controls.
The Lion Quality mark, which is a registered trademark, can only be used by subscribers to the BEIC on eggs which have been produced in accordance with UK and EU law and the Lion Quality Code of Practice.
More than 85% of UK eggs are now produced to Lion Quality standards.
Eliminating Salmonella from British Eggs
Since its introduction in 1998, the Lion mark has been extremely successful so much so that, in 2001 a Government committee (the Advisory Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Food) produced a report highlighting the effectiveness of poultry vaccination in reducing human salmonella cases by more than half.
The status of UK egg production as among the safest in the world was confirmed in a report published by the European Food Safety Authroity (EFSA) in 2007.
The EFSA report analysed the results of an EU-wide survey which sampled and tested the environment on egg layer flock holdings. Several countries reported levels of salmonella of public health significance on their flock holdings of more than 50%, while the UK figure was only 8%. 2008 figures have shown that, in the UK, salmonella of public health significance on flock holdings has since fallen to 1%.
In addition, British Lion Quality egg producers vaccinate their hens against salmonella and, in the analysis of the UK results within the EU survey, vaccination was also shown to reduce the prevalence of slamonella on holdings.
Reports from the Food Standards Agency (FSA) (view the report here) and the Health Protection Agency (HPA) published in 2004 praised the British egg industry for the huge decline in salmonella associated with eggs.
However, several other European countries have experienced continued outbreaks of salmonella and there were outbreaks among humans in the UK in 2009, directly linked with imported eggs.
An FSA survey of imported eggs on sale in the UK, published in 2006, found egg shell and/or contents contamination in one in 30 boxes of six eggs sampled. HPA tests on important eggs in 2004 found nearly 7% tested positive for salmonella. In the same HPA investigation, salmonella was not recovered from any British Lion eggs.