WorldPoultry: Major liquid egg co. team up with photopurification firm

Turkey’s largest liquid egg company IPAY (Izmir Pastorize Yumurta) has signed a multi-year royalty commercial agreement with SurePure, a liquid photopurification company, the green alternative to pasteurisation and chemicals, to improve shelf life.

IPAY intends to employ SurePure's photopurification technology to improve shelf life and brand quality of its egg products, using a SurePure system in its plant. As part of the transaction, SurePure will receive approximately USD $300,000 over the five year term of the agreement.

IPAY's products include whole egg, egg white and egg yolk, offering these products in bulk to industrial customers, bag-in-box for the catering trade and smaller cartons for retail. IPAY is the only company serving the non-industrial Turkish market, where shelf-life is critical.

This application follows academic research confirming the decontamination efficiency of UV-C against the main egg contaminant Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica Ser (de Souza & Fernandez, Feb 2011). Similar studies have demonstrated that UV-C treatments do not affect the rheological properties and the protein profile of liquid egg fractions (de Souza & Fernandez, May 2012), and other research has confirmed no adverse effects on consumer acceptance of egg products processed by UV-C, with overall appearance or taste similar to the controls processed thermally (de Souza & Fernandez, Jan 2012).