Why are eggs traditionally put in the dairy section of a grocery store?
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Is this an American thing? In the UK they’re with the rest of the baking stuff, flour, yeast, sugar etc. Even cartons of egg white will usually be with refrigerated baking stuff like butter and pre-made pastry.
My elder brother was 26 at the time… and he swore, I kid you not, that it’s because all the dairy products are kept together…
He literally believed that eggs were dairy products… as in “from cows.”
All because his friend told him so. He is the kind of man who decides whether or not a joke is funny depending on who told it to him. Facts are determined to be true or false depending on where he heard it. Food is decided to be good or bad depending on which fast food restaurant it came from.
“Usually all the refrigerated items are near each other in a grocery store. And in the US, eggs are refrigerated.”
Stores are also organized so quickly perishable, ie less manufactured or processed, goods are near the stockroom for easy replacement.
Milk and eggs are items people want to run into the store and grab quick. So you find them in the back together in order to make the people who only want the items see all the stuff on the way. This can make them want to grab the stuff and buy more than they would otherwise.
You can take a guess at all product location based on a sales and marketing need. The whole layout of stores is based on it.
One of Germany’s organic supermarkets did a test and they sold 33% more eggs when they were placed next to the vegetables. So they’re placed there now. Before they were next to the dairy/meat section .
Large format grocery stores traditionally have access from their backroom into the fridges and they can be placed on the shelves with less handling because it’s a high turnover item. This practice is starting to lessen as more stores are installing higher efficiency refrigerators and prefer the look of hand placed items.
That’s not the dairy section. That’s the stuff you can take from an animal without having to kill it section.
/s
In the UK they are not; they aren’t/don’t need to be refridgerated and are normally with the baking goods.
As others have pointed out, this seems to be a localized phenomenon. Where I live, eggs just have their own space. Sometimes, they’re in the same aisle as sauces. Sometimes, they just have their own mini-aisle. Sometimes, they’re next to candy.
Eggs in North America are kept cold due to the decontamination processes.
If eggs undergo a “cold” decontamination, they must be kept cold always.
If they undergo a “warm” decontamination, they must stay room temperature. The rest of the word uses the “warm” process.
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