Quality assessment of marketed eggs in Eastern Algeria

The objective of this study was to compare eggs quality between industrial and local chickens in four departments of Eastern Algeria (Bejaia, Jijel, Mila and Setif). A total of 4748 eggs were bought from three marketing channels as following: shops (1184), public markets (2757) and supermarkets (807). The percentage of stained eggs was significantly different (P<0.001) between industrial (15.25%) and local eggs (27.61%). A significant difference (P<0.05) was observed between industrial and local egg weight (61.01 vs 53.28g), egg shell weight (7.10 vs 6.30g), albumen weight (37.44 vs 29.69g), albumen percentage (61.34 vs 55.71%), shell thickness (0.381 vs 0.325mm). However, yolk weight (6.10 vs 6.30g), yolk percentage (27.06 vs 32.44%), shell percentage (11.60 vs 11.89%), yolk/albumen ratio (0.44 vs 0.58), albumen height (5.27 vs 5.93mm), Haugh unit (69.12 vs 77.80), yolk color (9.52 vs 10.94) and egg price (7.67 vs 12.84DA) of local chicken were significantly (P<0.01) higher than in the case of industrial hen. Marketing channels affected significantly (P<0.01) egg weight, yolk weight, albumen weight, albumen height and price of a total studied eggs. Egg weight (59.03g) and egg price (10.87DA) from supermarkets were the highest. Eggs of local hens presented according to the national preference, interesting quality criteria such as freshness, yolk/albumen ratio and yolk color.