On Friday 3 November, the European Investment Bank (EIB) announced that it had signed a €40 million loan agreement with Dutch agritech company In Ovo for the period 2023-2026, to develop its ‘Ella’ technology, which can prevent the killing of day-old chicks.
This agreement is supported by the InvestEU programme. The funding will enable the company to continue improving this technology and produce more ‘Ella’ machines.
In Ovo’s screening machine can identify the sex of eggs at an early stage, enabling hatcheries to hatch only laying hens and eliminate the need to cull male chicks directly after hatching. Every year, 6.5 billion male chicks are killed around the world in the production of laying hens. This technology will help to improve animal welfare and reduce CO2 emissions in the egg production sector.
Stella Kyriakides, Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, said that, thanks to this technology, “we will be avoiding the systematic killing of millions of male chicks throughout the European Union. This is a major step in our work to strengthen animal welfare standards in our Union.”
The European Parliament has called for EU legislation to ban the killing of male chicks (see EUROPE 13180/15). (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)