Egg enrichment with vitamin D: The Sunshine Eggs projects

Adam Clark,Lance Harbord,Simon Wilson,Sharron Kuznesof,Avril Ritchie,Sarah Davies,Anthony Waller,Tom Hill

doi:10.1111/nbu.12509

Abstract

AbstractVitamin D deficiency is a significant public health issue in the UK with almost one in five adults having poor vitamin D status and most people failing to meet the Reference Nutrient Intake of 10 µg/day. There is an urgent need to address poor population vitamin D status through the development of food‐based strategies. Eggs can be enriched with vitamin D through manipulating vitamin D content in hens’ feed. The Sunshine Eggs project was launched in 2015 through Innovate UK funding and brought together Noble Foods Ltd, DSM Nutritional Products Ltd and Newcastle University. The research demonstrated that feeding flocks of commercial hens up to 75 µg of 25‐D/kg (25‐hydroxyvitamin D3 via Rovimix® Hy‐D®) of feed for 6 weeks improved egg total vitamin D content by 40%. These results informed the reformulation of the UK’s leading free‐range egg brand ‘Happy Egg’ in October 2018, offering vitamin D–enriched eggs to the consumer. This article outlines the aims of a second Innovate UK‐funded Sunshine Eggs 2 project, which seeks to maximise the commercial potential of vitamin D–enriched eggs through several objectives. These relate to understanding (1) how storage/cooking methods affect egg vitamin D content; (2) whether enriched egg consumption improves vitamin D status in a human intervention trial; (3) consumer attitudes towards enriched eggs; and (4) market research to identify commercial opportunities for enriched eggs. The project seeks to drive fundamental impact across academic, commercial and public health nutrition sectors, in helping to offer viable vitamin D–enriched foods for UK consumers.

Highlights

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble micronutrient essential for maintenance of musculoskeletal health (SACN, 2016)
In 2015, an Innovate UK-funded Agri-Tech catalyst project (Project Code: 131899, https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=131899) involving Newcastle University, DSM Nutritional Products and Noble Foods set out to investigate whether egg enrichment with vitamin D is commercially feasible, following enrichment of hen diets in accordance with European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) safety limits on vitamin D
The results showed that by week 6, total vitamin D content was approximately 40% higher in eggs from hens fed the Hy-D

Summary

Introduction

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble micronutrient essential for maintenance of musculoskeletal health (SACN, 2016). These studies showed that saturation of egg yolks with vitamin D is achieved within about 6 weeks of consumption of fortified feed, and that total vitamin D content of eggs could potentially be increased by as much as 78% (Browning & Cowieson, 2014; Mattila et al, 2003). In 2015, an Innovate UK-funded Agri-Tech catalyst project (Project Code: 131899, https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=131899) involving Newcastle University, DSM Nutritional Products and Noble Foods set out to investigate whether egg enrichment with vitamin D is commercially feasible, following enrichment of hen diets in accordance with EFSA safety limits on vitamin D.

Results

Conclusion