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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

They Are The Egg Men

Eggology is a punny place to work. If you do your job above and beyond expectations, you get named the most eggcellent employee of the month. Visitors to the company Web site get more information on a product by hitting the “Egg Me On” button. The guys in charge? Why they are eggsecutives, of course. With revenues growing annually at 20 percent, what Brad Halpern and his crew at the Canoga Park manufacturer bring in is not, well, chicken feed. Eggology started out selling its raw eggs to body builders and gyms before cracking other markets. Today it provides product to high-end restaurants and hotels, major grocery chains, bakeries, and wineries. Even day spas use Eggology’s products in facial masks and skin tighteners. “You look at the [grocery] shelves and there isn’t much innovation, especially when it comes to eggs,” said Valley native Halpern. Starting out in a 10-foot-square space in Vernon, Halpern now operates his company out of a large industrial park facility on Vanowen Street. A roomy and sterile environment contains the production line where employees and visitors are required to wear hair nets. The egg whites are delivered in drums, totes and tanks. When a second production line gets up and running in the next several months, tanker trucks will ship in the clear liquid. The line workers can fill anywhere from 3,000 pounds to 15,000 pounds of product a day, depending on the size of the containers. With the second line, capacity will reach up to 50,000 pounds. That Eggology can do those numbers shows that Halpern was onto something when he started the company in 1993. In those early days Halpern hand-applied the labels on bottles of raw egg whites, using a hair dryer to adhere the tamper-proof seals. His then-girlfriend (now his wife) took the bottles to gyms to sell to body builders who drink egg whites because of their high protein content. Originally, the egg whites were supplied by the father of one of Halpern’s childhood friends. Now all Eggology whites come from a variety of organic providers in Southern California. Safety First The U.S. Department of Agriculture requires testing of the egg whites every eight days. Halpern, however, has a more stringent standard of testing they are checked every single day for salmonella, e.coli and other illness-causing bacteria. A USDA inspector works out of an office at the Eggology facility, keeping an eye on the production line and the packing process to make sure it is all safe. “It’s like driving with a cop in the passenger seat,” Halpern said. Those aren’t the only pair of eyes watching. A rabbi drops in unannounced four to five times a year to assure that Eggology products are kosher. High-end restaurants and hotels using the egg whites also conduct their own audits of the manufacturing process. “We eliminate any risk while maintaining a high quality product,” said Carl Forshage, the chief operating officer. Wild Oats Markets was the first retail chain to stock Eggology, followed by Gelson’s, Ralphs and Whole Foods. When refrigerated, the egg whites have a shelf life of four months. “He’s taken a product and added some value to it,” said Jon Startz, of National Foodservice, a distributor of Eggology products in Southern California. Now that it is known there are profits to be made from offering a healthy alternative to eating an egg yolk and all, Eggology goes up against competing product from larger companies, EggBeaters being the most well known. “[Competition is] out there but Brad seems to have cornered the market, at least in our area,” said Gerry Van Nortwick, of Nature’s Best, a distributor to natural food retailers in the western United States. There is more to egg whites than guzzling them down raw or using them to whip up icing, meringue and chocolate mousse. Halpern said there are a number of uses for egg whites that he was unaware of. Wineries, for example, use egg whites as a clarifying agent. Bakeries apply egg whites to give shiny sheen to Danish and other baked goods. Rave Reviews Expanding the company’s product lines from the raw egg whites into consumables such as ice cream and muffins originated from the need to bring convenience to the consumer. In stretching out the product line, research at Eggology led to the Cool Cravings ice cream line and the Simply Sensational line of carrot cake and muffins. Halpern’s dog graces the bottles of Norton’s Naturals, a mixture of egg whites, salmon oil and oats created for pets. Because the five flavors of ice cream use egg whites and are all natural no stabilizers or gums are used and contain less fat and more protein. “The [Cool Cravings] ice cream is different, yet every bit as satisfying as premium, full-fat ice cream,” wrote a food columnist for the Oakland Tribune in an August review. “In fact, it’s better than a lot of $5-per-pint ice creams I’ve tried.” When Eggology sent Startz the Simply Sensational products, the distributor had a preconceived notion that taste would have been sacrificed by using egg whites but was blown away instead. Now when Startz brings the muffins and cake to retail outlets and restaurants, he will not say they are made organically and are healthy, instead relying on the good taste to sell itself. “This, by far, was the best carrot cake I have ever had in my life,” Startz said. “I can’t believe this is good for you too.” For people on the go who want that extra boost of protein egg whites give, Eggology developed microwaveable cups that take less than two minutes to cook. “We like to melt a little fat-free or low-fat cheese on ’em but they’re great as is and they could NOT be easier to carry and store,” gushed a review from May at the Hungry Girl website. The start of a new year is good for business at Eggology. With people making resolutions to get in shape, orders for the raw egg whites go up, especially for those delivered via FedEx. In the summer, when people are more conscious about how they look, orders take off as well. “If we make the customer happy, we have a customer for life,” Forshage SNAPSHOT: Eggology Year Founded: 1993 Revenues 2005: $5.3 million Revenues 2007: $8.6 million Employees 2005: 13 Employees 2007: 18

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