At stake is a potential market of millions of disaffected egg eaters. Annual U.S. egg consumption has plummeted from 309 per person in 1970 to 234 in 1990, largely because of fears of cholesterol. Seeking alternatives, consumers now shell out about $125 million annually on cholesterol- and fat-free egg-white products; the most popular is Egg Beaters, introduced in 1973 by Nabisco, which has grabbed 51 percent of the market. But Michael Foods’ chief executive officer Richard Olson, who has built it into a $455 million firm in five years, contends that sales of egg-white alternatives have been hampered by the fact that the yolkless products are bland imitations of the real item. “They’re egg whites colored yellow and frozen-and they tasted like egg whites colored and frozen,” he says.
Olson is gambling that consumers will spend big bucks for guilt-free eggs. The company has already earned a reputation for innovation: in 1987, it was among the first to start using an ultrahigh-temperature pasteurization process that keeps dairy products fresh for weeks. Its biggest success is Easy Eggs, a salmonella-proof liquid egg with a 10-week shelf life; sales have risen to $80 million since its 1989 introduction. Five years ago Michael Foods began searching for ways to eliminate cholesterol. First it tried an expensive process using high-pressure gases to extract cholesterol from powdered yolks, but company executives weren’t happy with the taste. Then in 1989 it stumbled upon beta cyclodextrin (BCD), a derivative of cornstarch, which bonds with a yolk’s cholesterol and can then be separated from the rest of the yolk with a centrifuge. “A person could eat 20 of these low-cholesterol eggs a week” and still remain within the American Heart Association guidelines for egg consumption, claims Daniel Gardner, chairman of M.G. Waldbaum Co., Michael Foods’ egg-processing unit. The company has hatched a $30 million joint egg venture with a German firm, SKW Trostberg AG, which invented the cholesterol-extraction process. The partners plan to eventually produce as much as 200 million pounds of egg product annually and to launch Simply Eggs in Minneapolis, St. Paul and Chicago this spring.
Will Simply Eggs find a market? Some experts are skeptical. For one thing, Simply Eggs costs three times as much as the real item, and the liquid cant be fried or cooked sunny side up. Dietary experts say most Americans don’t need the high-tech eggs-and shouldn’t be so worried about dietary cholesterol. Kim Galeaz Gioe, spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, says a bigger cause of clogged arteries is fat; a single egg contains just five grams of it, and the average American’s diet of four eggs a week is within acceptable limits. “[The problem is] all the butter and mayonnaise, the fried foods that are loaded with fat,” she says. Another possible glitch: the Food and Drug Administration hasn’t approved the product and could halt production if it decides the cornstarch substance is harmful. (Michael Foods admits a “trace” of BCD remains in the product.) FDA spokesperson Chris Lecos says Michael Foods will market the product “at their own risk.”
Even if Simply Eggs stays on supermarket shelves, it will face competition from other companies poaching on the same turf. A Cambridge, Mass.-based firm is experimenting with an enzyme that converts cholesterol to a compound called coprostanol, which passes through the body without being absorbed. And Seattle-based Bon Dente Inc. is developing Egglite Raw Whole Egg-with a yolk combining corn oil, chicken meat and chicken broth. Analyst Ron Strauss, of the Chicago firm William Blair & Co., predicts Simply Eggs will follow the sales pattern of the firm’s Easy Eggs, which started off strongly but eventually began to lose market share to tough competition. “It was an innovation,” says Strauss. “But others came in and stole part of the market.” Memo to Michael Foods: don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
Michael Foods claims its multistep process removes 80 percent of an egg’s cholesterol.
1 The eggs are broken open by a cracking machine and the yolks are separated from the egg whites.
2 Beta cyclodextrin (a processed-starch substance) is added, absorbing cholesterol from the yolks.
3 The mixture is spun in a centrifuge. The egg yolks remain with only 20 percent of their cholesterol.
4 Next, the egg whites are mixed with the yolks, pasteurized at ultrahigh temperatures and then packaged.
SOURCE: MICHAEL FOODS
title: “Betting On A Guilt Free Egg” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-23” author: “Robert Huffman”
At stake is a potential market of millions of disaffected egg eaters. Annual U.S. egg consumption has plummeted from 309 per person in 1970 to 234 in 1990, largely because of fears of cholesterol. Seeking alternatives, consumers now shell out about $125 million annually on cholesterol- and fat-free egg-white products; the most popular is Egg Beaters, introduced in 1973 by Nabisco, which has grabbed 51 percent of the market. But Michael Foods’ chief executive officer Richard Olson, who has built it into a $455 million firm in five years, contends that sales of egg-white alternatives have been hampered by the fact that the yolkless products are bland imitations of the real item. “They’re egg whites colored yellow and frozen-and they tasted like egg whites colored and frozen,” he says.
Olson is gambling that consumers will spend big bucks for guilt-free eggs. The company has already earned a reputation for innovation: in 1987, it was among the first to start using an ultrahigh-temperature pasteurization process that keeps dairy products fresh for weeks. Its biggest success is Easy Eggs, a salmonella-proof liquid egg with a 10-week shelf life; sales have risen to $80 million since its 1989 introduction. Five years ago Michael Foods began searching for ways to eliminate cholesterol. First it tried an expensive process using high-pressure gases to extract cholesterol from powdered yolks, but company executives weren’t happy with the taste. Then in 1989 it stumbled upon beta cyclodextrin (BCD), a derivative of cornstarch, which bonds with a yolk’s cholesterol and can then be separated from the rest of the yolk with a centrifuge. “A person could eat 20 of these low-cholesterol eggs a week” and still remain within the American Heart Association guidelines for egg consumption, claims Daniel Gardner, chairman of M.G. Waldbaum Co., Michael Foods’ egg-processing unit. The company has hatched a $30 million joint egg venture with a German firm, SKW Trostberg AG, which invented the cholesterol-extraction process. The partners plan to eventually produce as much as 200 million pounds of egg product annually and to launch Simply Eggs in Minneapolis, St. Paul and Chicago this spring.
Will Simply Eggs find a market? Some experts are skeptical. For one thing, Simply Eggs costs three times as much as the real item, and the liquid cant be fried or cooked sunny side up. Dietary experts say most Americans don’t need the high-tech eggs-and shouldn’t be so worried about dietary cholesterol. Kim Galeaz Gioe, spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, says a bigger cause of clogged arteries is fat; a single egg contains just five grams of it, and the average American’s diet of four eggs a week is within acceptable limits. “[The problem is] all the butter and mayonnaise, the fried foods that are loaded with fat,” she says. Another possible glitch: the Food and Drug Administration hasn’t approved the product and could halt production if it decides the cornstarch substance is harmful. (Michael Foods admits a “trace” of BCD remains in the product.) FDA spokesperson Chris Lecos says Michael Foods will market the product “at their own risk.”
Even if Simply Eggs stays on supermarket shelves, it will face competition from other companies poaching on the same turf. A Cambridge, Mass.-based firm is experimenting with an enzyme that converts cholesterol to a compound called coprostanol, which passes through the body without being absorbed. And Seattle-based Bon Dente Inc. is developing Egglite Raw Whole Egg-with a yolk combining corn oil, chicken meat and chicken broth. Analyst Ron Strauss, of the Chicago firm William Blair & Co., predicts Simply Eggs will follow the sales pattern of the firm’s Easy Eggs, which started off strongly but eventually began to lose market share to tough competition. “It was an innovation,” says Strauss. “But others came in and stole part of the market.” Memo to Michael Foods: don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
Michael Foods claims its multistep process removes 80 percent of an egg’s cholesterol.
1 The eggs are broken open by a cracking machine and the yolks are separated from the egg whites.
2 Beta cyclodextrin (a processed-starch substance) is added, absorbing cholesterol from the yolks.
3 The mixture is spun in a centrifuge. The egg yolks remain with only 20 percent of their cholesterol.
4 Next, the egg whites are mixed with the yolks, pasteurized at ultrahigh temperatures and then packaged.
SOURCE: MICHAEL FOODS
