Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) on Wednesday introduced legislation to allow hatcheries to use pasteurized eggs in egg products, like cake mixes, salad dressings, and other grocery products. The Lowering Egg Prices Act of 2025 will help increase the egg supply for consumers by cutting bureaucratic red tape that forces hatcheries to discard hundreds of millions of safe, useable eggs each year.
“I want to thank Senator Cotton for his leadership on this important issue,” said NCC President Harrison Kircher.
Federal regulations require the refrigeration of eggs 36 hours after they are laid. But that rule does not distinguish between table eggs (which are raw products that need to be refrigerated), and breaker eggs (which are pasteurized for use in everyday grocery products like salad dressing, cake mix, and pasta).
This has forced the broiler industry to throw away nearly 400 million perfectly good eggs each year. The Lowering Egg Prices Act will fix this problem by granting regulatory discretion on the refrigeration requirement for broiler eggs, thus putting hundreds of millions of breaker eggs back on the market.
The Senate bill mirrors a House version of “The Lowering Egg Prices Act” introduced earlier this year by Rep. Josh Riley (D-NY) with Dusty Johnson (R-SD), Pat Harrigan (R-NC), and Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-MI).
NCC in February petitioned the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to reverse or modify the 15-year old regulation that forces the broiler industry to discard perfectly nutritious and safe eggs.
A bipartisan group of more than a dozen members of the House have written to Acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Sara Brenner urging the agency to grant NCC’s petition.
