American Egg Board

American Egg Board
Agency overview
Formed December 22, 1975 (1975-12-22)
Headquarters Park Ridge, IL
Agency executives
Key documents
Website www.aeb.org

The American Egg Board (AEB) is a United States marketing board, which focuses on marketing and promotion of eggs for human consumption. The AEB is best known for its long-running slogan, "The Incredible, Edible Egg".

History

Founding and early years

The board is a checkoff organization, meaning that it is funded by a levy against its members for each unit they produce; in this case, an amount per case of eggs shipped. It was created by the Egg Research and Promotion Order pursuant to the Egg Research and Consumer Information Act of 1974.[1][2] A referendum was conducted November 3–28, 1975, by the Agricultural Marketing Service and seventy-three percent of eligible producers approved the program.[3] The Egg Board established by the order became the American Egg Board beginning July 9, 1976.[4]

Hampton Creek campaign

In September 2015, the board was criticized regarding their actions of paid advocacy against Hampton Creek, a company marketing vegan egg substitutes and Just Mayo, a mayonnaise substitute which uses pea protein as an emulsifier in place of eggs.[5]

In September 2015, a Freedom of Information request by Ryan Shapiro[6] had revealed a number of cases where the government-controlled American Egg Board (AEB) had engaged in a systematic paid advocacy campaign targeting Hampton Creek. The AEB paid food bloggers to post articles containing the group's talking points regarding eggs, targeted personalities and websites that had posted articles covering the company in a positive manner, and purchased keyword advertising on Google Search to display advertisements on searches for Hampton Creek or its founder Josh Tetrick, among other actions. AEB chief executive Joanne Ivy stated at one point that Hampton Creek was a "crisis and major threat to the future." These actions violate USDA policies, which disallow advertising by its marketing boards that are "deemed disparaging to another commodity."[7]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Egg Research and Promotion Order, 40 FR 59190, December 22, 1975, codified at 7 C.F.R. 1250
  2. ↑ Egg Research and Consumer Information Act, Pub.L. 93–428, 88 Stat. 1171, enacted October 1, 1974, codified at 7 U.S.C. ch. 60
  3. ↑ United States House Committee on Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock (1994), Egg Research and Consumer Information Act Amendments of 1993 : hearing before the Subcommittee on Livestock of the Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives, One Hundred Third Congress, first session, on H.R. 1637, September 14, 1993
  4. ↑ "'Egg Board' Officially Adopts AEB Name, Office". The Poultry Times. July 12, 1976.
  5. ↑ Thielman, Sam; Rushe, Dominic (2 September 2015). "Government-backed egg lobby tried to crack food startup, emails show". The Guardian.
  6. ↑ Charles, Dan (September 3, 2015). "How Big Egg Tried To Bring Down Little 'Mayo' (And Failed)". NPR. Retrieved 2016-02-22.
  7. ↑ Thielman, Sam. "US-appointed egg lobby paid food blogs and targeted chef to crush vegan startup". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 September 2015.

External links

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