Abstract:
Executive Summary
Egg quality is crucial for safety, nutritional value, and economic efficiency. This study
assesses the external and internal quality of chicken eggs collected from Dhaka city, across
various markets providing insights into four different market categories: Wholesale market
(WM), Super shop (SS), Grocery shop (GS) and Open shop (OS). The study examined the
quality of chicken eggs using 300 egg from various market areas. Egg quality were assessed
both externally and internally. Results demonstrated that the significant variation was
observed in egg weight among the various markets and the highest egg weight value was
observed in open shop (60.39±4.21) (p<0.05). SS showed the maximum shape index value
of eggs with a mean of (78.65±4.59). Significant variations were found in cleanness and
broken egg percentage among the markets (p<0.05) and WS showed the highest broken egg
percentage (5.55%). In internal quality, Haugh unit represented the significant variations
among the various categories (p<0.05) where OS showed the highest value of (72.05±13.02)
(p<0.05). No significant differences were observed in shell weight and shell thickness of
eggs among different categories (p>0.05). A wide range of yolk color grade (5-15) was
addressed in the eggs of all categories where the highest average value (9.82±2.20) of yolk
color grade was observed in WS (p<0.05). Albumen index and yolk index value varied
significantly among the various market categories and the highest albumen index
(6.65±2.39) and yolk index (36.32±4.97) value were observed in OS and WS; respectively
(p<0.05). Haugh unit based and USDA based grading (internal egg quality grading) showed
the highest value of 60.71% and 82.14%; respectively for AA (superior grade) grade found
in OS category. Microbiological study showed the total viable count ranges from 1.9×10
to
8.5×10
5
in egg shell and 1.6×10
2
to 9.1×10
3
in egg yolk found in all market categories
respectively. The concentration of heavy metals (Cr and Pb) were found to be below the
detection level in egg samples among all categories. The comprehensive study provides
valuable insights to the qualitative and quantitative parameters of eggs showing their ideal
structure and content. And lower concentration of microbes and heavy metals in eggs shows
no hazardous issue to human health.
