© Teo Lay Peng | Dreamstime.com
Strolling through the pasta aisle of a Swiss supermarket, someone new to Switzerland might conclude that the locals prefer egg pasta over the eggless variety. And, while that might to some extent be true, there is another reason.
Every year, Swiss egg producers produce too many eggs and turn to the government for help.
The Federal Office of Agriculture (OFAG) does three things. Firstly, it funds retail egg discounts and runs a “broken egg” programme, which subsidizes the use of eggs as an ingredient in other foods. In 2017, under the “broken egg” scheme the government contributed 9 cents each towards 16.9 million eggs, which were used as ingredients in other food products like pasta. In addition, the government paid 5 cents each towards discounts on 7.9 million eggs. The total bill to taxpayers came to CHF 1.9 million.
Over the last 12 years the government has spent close to CHF 21 million on these two schemes.
In addition, further public money is spent on egg marketing. In 2017, the government spent CHF 1.2 million on this.
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