LOHMANN BREEDERS AND GHEN CORPORATION JAPAN

On 6th and 7th April Ghen Corporation, the distributor of LOHMANN LSL breeders (called Julia in Japan), organized the annual Sakura ‘Cherryblossom’ technical meeting for their parentstock customers.

Due to the ongoing Covid restrictions the event was done online. More than 100 staff members from the 16 leading layer hatcheries participated in the virtual show.

The meeting started with a welcome speech by Ghen’s president Mr. Watanabe.

Support from the LOHMANN team

Ron Eek presented a paper to update the audience on developments in the European egg business. Special attention was given to the animal welfare related issues of ban on euthanizing day-old layer male chicks in Germany and the ban on beak trimming.

Japanese egg producers are highly interested in developments in Europe and other regions where cage-free egg production gains popularity.

In Japan, however, merely all eggs are produced in conventional cages; only a handful of companies have introduced enriched cages or small cage-free facilities.

The Japanese consumer is more focused on food security and expects perfect, clean eggs and is less concerned about the system of egg production.

The second presentation was done by LOHMANN nutritionist Robert Pottgüter: He focused on aminoacids in layer diets and eggshell stability.

Moreover, breeder performance of each company was ranked and the top performers received an award.

On the second day Ghen and LOHMANN staff addressed issues forwarded by the participants. In those sessions flock management, hatchery and nutritional matters were discussed lively.

The egg in Japan

The total egg production is 2.6 million tons per year. Japanese are amongst the highest egg consumers worldwide, per year each person eats around 340 eggs! Around 45% is sold as table eggs, 30% is used in the food business and restaurants and the remaining 25% is processed in food.

Table eggs are normally packed in clear plastic boxes of 10 eggs. 60 to 70% are sold as mixed pack with eggs of different sizes, 30 to 40% are sized pack.

In the mixed pack you may find different grades like S, M and L sized eggs but the total weight of 10 eggs should be 610 gram for white and 630 gram for brown eggs.

Japanese egg consumers are very quality conscious; preferred size is M & L class around 63 gram per egg. They prefer white shelled eggs (about 60%), brown (30%) and tinted (10%) eggs are mainly sold as so-called branded eggs.

Outer egg shell must be smooth and absolutely clean (eggs are washed in packing station). Shell colour should be uniform, without pale discoloured eggs. Internal egg quality must be perfect as well, much attention is paid to absence of blood- and meat spots and a good albumen height.

Ghen Corporation – our partner for success

Each year about 110 million layer chicks are raised. Ghen Corporation supplies nearly 90% of all layer breeders in Japan. Since the early nineties the share of LSL commercials has grown to more than 85% of the domestic white egg layers.

LOHMANN BREEDERS supplies both LSL CLASSIC and – LITE Grandparents to Japan to safeguard continuous production of breeding stock.

Both breeds form a perfect match for producers who need medium and large sized white shelled eggs.