HOW EGGS ARE MARKETED 
The great bulk of eggs move through the channels of the 
small restaurant, bakery and grocery. In the small cities of 
the Central West the grocer handles eggs at a margin of one 
to three cents. In the South and farther West the margin 
is two to seven cents, the retail price always being in the 
even nickel. In the large eastern city there exists the cus- 
tom unknown in the West of having two or more grades of 
eggs for sale in the same store. All eggs offered for sale are 
claimed by the salesman to be “strictly fresh” or the “best,” 
and yet these eggs may vary if it be April from fifteen cents 
to forty cents, or if in December from thirty cents to seventy- 
five cents per dozen. The New York grocers’ profit is from two 
to five cents on cheap eggs, but runs higher on high grade 
eggs, freqently reach twenty cents a dozen and sometimes 
going as high as forty cents for very fancy stock. 
City retailing is by far the most expensive item in the mar- 
keting of eggs. As an illustration of the profits of the various 
handlers of eggs might be as follows: 
Paid the farmer in Iowa................00 eee $.15 
Profit of country store............... cece eee .00 
Gross profit of shipper................000 ce uee 00% 
Freight to New York................ 2. cee cues .01% 
Gross profit of receiver........... 0.00. e cee 00% 
Gross profit of jobber................. 0000005 01% 
Loss from candling............. 0.0... 000 ee eee -01% 
Gross profit of retailer....................0.. 04% 
Cost to COMSUMEL......... cc eee eee eee $.25 
The cheapest grade of eggs sold are taken by bakeries and 
for cooking purposes at restaurants. When cooked with other 
food an egg may have its flavor so covered up that a very 
repulsive specimen may be used. Measures have been fre- 
quently taken by city boards of health to stop the sale of spot 
rots and other low grade eggs. The great difficulty with such 
regulations is that they are difficult of enforcement because 
no line of demarcation can be drawn as in the case of adulter- 
ated or preserved products. 
That embryo chicks and bacterially contaminated eggs are 
consumed by the million cannot be doubted, but the individual 
examination of each egg sold would be the only way in which 
the food inspectors can prevent their use. The egg from the 
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