Why are eggs traditionally put in the dairy section of a grocery store?
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Usually all the refrigerated items are near each other in a grocery store. And in the US, eggs are refrigerated.
Eggs, cheese, milk and other essentials are kept together for two reasons.
1. Refrigerated items are kept together in the refrigerated section
2. The most commonly purchased items are put near the back of the store so you have to walk past the largest amount of other items that you might pick up on the way
Edit: As everyone has so rightly said
3. The back of the store is the most accessible location for staff loading the shelves. This helps prevent food spoilage.
I would add that when milk and other dairy products were primarily delivered direct to home by milk men, they would also carry other dairy products such as cheese, butter and cream. These “Dairy services” often also delivered eggs.
When supermarkets became more common, consumers purchased these items directly. Most of these products required refrigeration with the introduction of pasteurization. So all “dairy products,” we’re placed in the same location in the store. Hence milk, cheese, cream, butter, and eggs ended up in the “dairy” section.
According to James May from TopGear, it’s because Eggs come from the Milkman
Lots of appropriate answers about refrigeration, but why are eggs stored with dairy rather than with meats?
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The dairy section is where they keep the things you get from animals without killing the animals. The meat department is where they keep the parts of the animals that we kill to eat. The produce section is where they keep the non-animal food.
In the U.K. eggs are placed by the bread, flour and sugar. Eggs are used in baking, so it’s by the baking stuff.
Every store is divided into different departments
Dry Goods
Perishable Goods
Non Food
Fresh Foods
Toiletries
This departments usually require specialist attention and are not treated on the same way- dry goods have a long shelf life and don’t usually result in large amounts of waste for example.
Perishable Goods are Dairy, Eggs, Frozen foods, usually bread as well. These categories have a high risk of wastage as their shelf life is from a few days to a few months. These items are usually temperature sensitive and are cared for by a perishables goods manager/controller. It’s easier to categorise the department in this way, because it is quite a time consuming department that requires attention to detail esp wrt stock rotation, ordering and minimising wastage.
The perishable goods and fresh foods are usually in a part of the store called a Temperature Drop Zone And in order to keep the store organised and easier to manage, these categories are kept in the same general area. This ensures that the products maintain their required temperatures and prolongs shelf life. This is a part of food handling called maintaining the cold chain.
Yet here in the UK that’s very rarely the case, normally find them next to the bread (eggs are not refrigerated).
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