farm where they were produced without heing cleaned and sized. Re- 

 moteness from the consumer market may have accounted for the large 

 percentage of loose packed eggs in Vermont. 



Very few eggs produced in New England were broken out. New 

 England was and still is a deficit area and eggs were marketed in the 

 shell if possible. Packers did break out a few eggs that cannot be packed 

 in the shell. 



Volume of Eggs Handled 



Average Size and Size Classification 



■8 



The firms were classified according to annual volume (Table 5). 

 More than half of the firms had annual volumes between 5,000 and 

 50,000 cases of eggs. The largest number of firms was in the size classi- 

 fication 10,000 to 50.000 cases annual volume. The smallest number of 

 firms was in the size classification 2,500 to 5,000 cases annual volume. 

 In general, the interviewed firms in Connecticut, Maine, and Mass- 

 achusetts were larger than those in New Hampshire and Vermont. 



Classification According to Type of Firm 



Firms were classified according to type of firm and size (Table 6). 

 In the producer group, 33 of the 55 firms were in the size range of 5,000 

 to 50,000 cases annual volume. In the packer group, 20 of the 28 firms 

 had volumes greater than 50,000 cases annually. Wholesalers tended to 

 have volumes of less than 50,000 cases annually. 



Total Volume Handled 



Four million cases of eggs were handled in 1965 by the 105 firms 

 surveyed. Of these firms, the fifty-five producer group firms handled 

 twenty-eight percent of the total volume marketed by the 105 firms 

 surveyed (Table 7). The packer group, twenty-eight firms, handled the 

 largest volume of eggs accounting for fifty-nine percent of the total vol- 

 ume. Wholesalers handled about nine percent and the miscellaneous 

 group of assemblers, breaker and truckers handled four percent. It is 

 of interest to note that annual volumes for the packer group averaged 

 about four times that of the other three groups. 



It was estimated that about 8.6 million cases of shell eggs were con- 

 sumed in New England in 1965. The firms contacted in the survey 

 handled approximately half of this total, just over 4 million cases. This 

 does not mean that the survey accounted for half of the New England 

 consumption. There was a double counting of some of the eggs in the 

 survey and it would be difficult to determine the exact percentage. If the 

 producer sales to wholesalers and inter-firm sales were deducted, then 

 about two and a half million cases were left. This indicated that as little 

 as thirty percent of the New England egg consumption in 1965 might 

 have been handled by firms surveyed in this study. The actual coverage 

 of the study was probably somewhere between one-half and one-third 

 of the 1965 New England egg consumption. 



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