The Utah Department of Agriculture and Food (UDAF) will be holding its annual Egg Quality Assurance Plan Training, October 16 at UDAF offices in Salt Lake City.

“Food safety is paramount to our mission and that starts with regular preparedness and training of our industry partners,” said UDAF Commissioner Kerry Gibson. “The role our inspectors play is equally important as we provide industry surveillance, appropriate responses, and containment plans that address the risk factors impacting Utah citizens.”

Industry participants of the training include state egg producers, graders, and inspectors, along with state and federal officials from UDAF, FDA, Health Department, USDA/APHIS/VS, and the Utah Veterinary Diagnostic Lab.

The agenda includes poultry rodent control, disease, and foodborne outbreak prevention, biosecurity, food safety, assessment guidelines and updates to those guidelines.

“This training is required by our plan and is an important part of our efforts to ensure our poultry in the State remain disease-free and  provides assurance that consumers are getting safe, wholesome, quality eggs, egg products, and poultry,” said Dr. Robert Erickson, field veterinarian for the UDAF Division of Animal Industries. “This and other trainings ease our job of enforcing uniformity and compliance to match industry standards.”

Utah’s egg industry consists of 3.6 million egg-laying chickens that produce one billion eggs annually. That represents nearly $150 million in revenue and nine percent of Utah’s agricultural industry.

In May 2018, UDAF’s Egg and Poultry Grading team received Governor Herbert’s Award of Excellence at a special ceremony at the Capitol. The recognition was given for consistently demonstrating outstanding contributions to consumers of Utah, seven days a week and including holidays.