NestFresh branding, including the text "humanely Hatched." Credit NestFresh.

NestFresh

On a Sunday 40 years ago, the egg-industry executive Michael I. Sencer had an unforgettable experience.

He was visiting a large California egg ranch with his family, so that his children could watch baby chicks coming out of the incubators. As they emerged, workers would separate the males and females, tossing the male chicks into trash cans lined with plastic bags. Sencer still remembers vividly that “when they would fill them with the baby male chicks, they basically would just close them up and suffocate them.”

His young daughter tugged at him. What were they doing, she wondered. “I explained to her that the males in the egg industry were useless and that’s what they did: they disposed of them. And oh, she didn’t talk to me for a long time. So that really impacted me personally.”

It’s still the case in the U.S. egg industry that while female chicks are allowed to grow into egg-laying hens, the male chicks are killed en masse. This amounts to hundreds of millions of chicks a year. The standard practice now is to use not plastic bags, but machines called macerators with rotating blades. These shred the chicks quickly, in a brutally efficient process.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Sencer, now the senior vice president for the food company Hidden Villa Ranch, realized this a few years ago, while reading international trade publications. He learned of Europe’s track record with a technology called in-ovo sexing, following multiple countries’ regulations on chick culling. Germany banned chick culling back in 2022, even before commercially viable in-ovo sexing machines existed. Sencer soon flew to Germany to check out the new machines.

In July 2025, the U.S. finally started selling eggs produced using in-ovo sexing, from the Hidden Villa Ranch brand NestFresh. And today, one year later, all NestFresh eggs are sourced via in-ovo sexing. Sencer is thrilled at this milestone, four decades after that soul-searching moment at the hatchery with his daughter. Beyond NestFresh, the farming group United Egg Producers reports that in-ovo-sexing machines are now integrated into four U.S. hatcheries, which it calls “an important step forward in addressing one of the most pressing challenges in egg production today.”

“The technology is evolving so quickly,” comments Liz Fergus, senior corporate relations manager for the Humane League. Approaches include imaging, liquid analysis, and even smell-based detection of sex. Some are invasive, while others don’t involve penetrating the egg. Fergus says, “The winners are the ones that are leading on accuracy, on speed, on automation, on cost. So at this time, MRI imaging with AI, hyperspectral imaging and DNA analysis systems, they’re all viable.”

In the U.S., the most affordable in-ovo sexing technology is Cheggy, a non-invasive system that can detect over 20,000 eggs an hour. The hyperspectral analysis basically studies the feathers of developing embryos, whose coloration varies between male and female embryos. The Cheggy machines are made by the German company Agri Advanced Technologies. The issue Stateside is that Cheggy can sex only brown eggs (like NestFresh’s), while U.S. eggs are mainly white.

Fergus believes that what will probably take off in the U.S. is a technology with a lower throughput and a higher cost, but greater versatility. Genus Focus, made by German company Orbem, uses MRI and AI to detect sex. Following a fresh infusion of funding this year, Orbem is planning expansion in the U.S.

While the array of in-ovo sexing techniques expands, the ability to detect sex earlier is also improving. In addition to being more ethical, it’s more efficient to not raise chicks that will be killed just because of their sex. “The earlier you can remove male chicks from the incubation process, there are economic upsides to that for the hatchery,” Fergus says. In 2024, Germany required sex determination of eggs to take place by the 13th day of incubation.

Even more advanced technologies like spectroscopic imaging will need time to mature. This form of gene editing, being developed in Israel, basically stops the development of male embryos. Fergus comments, “There is huge potential there, because it eliminates the issue of males developing. And that would be ideal from an animal welfare standpoint, from a hatchery standpoint.” It would also allow hatcheries to recover the full economic value of the eggs. However, there’s a long way to go, from technology through regulation and consumer acceptance.

Another theme for consumer acceptance is how to market this major step forward in animal welfare. As with other animal welfare labels, there is a large and sometimes confusing range of labels describing eggs produced in kinder ways. These may or may not include in-ovo sexing replacing chick culling.

NestFresh settled on the phrase “humanely hatched” after its studies suggested that typical consumers were unfamiliar with either “culling” or “in-ovo sexing,” so these terms would likely have required some explanation. Sencer points out, “Your egg carton only has so much space.” The brand’s in-ovo sexing has now been validated by Certified Humane.

Overall, the main obstacle so far has been the upfront cost of buying in-ovo sexing machines (not to mention the extra buildings that may be needed to house them). Fergus reports that U.S. hatcheries are currently renting the machines from the technology companies, and paying a per-egg fee. The slightly higher cost usually gets passed on to the consumer. According to Fergus, a switch to in-ovo sexing results in a price increase of about 1 penny an egg, which consumers are generally willing to pay (if they know). “Public awareness is typically less than 20%,” according to notes Robert Yaman, the CEO of think tank Innovate Animal Ag.

But in order to help build the consumer market, NestFresh has not raised prices on its in-ovo-sexed eggs, though they cost 50 to 75 cents more per bird to produce. There’s currently a surplus driving down egg prices in the U.S., Sencer explains. And NestFresh was already on the higher side of egg prices. “To get this going and to make people see that we really believe in this process, we elected not to raise prices,” Sencer says. He hopes that will change once consumer demand grows.

What about elsewhere? In Europe, the regulation catalyzed the tech. In essence, “Germany created the market conditions for the technology,” Yaman notes. Similar bans are unlikely in the U.S., though the EGG SAVE Act, proposing a tax credit for in-ovo sexing equipment, was introduced in the House of Representatives in October 2025. In France, subsidies helped advance in-ovo sexing.

In world-leading Germany, while egg production now is higher than before the ban on chick culling, many smaller producers have gone out of business. In-ovo sexing technology reached Brazilian shores in 2025, and Australian ones in 2026. Yaman expects many other countries to follow suit. “In more cost-sensitive markets like India adoption might take longer, since in-ovo sexing still adds a small cost,” Yaman adds. “But costs are falling rapidly, the technology is improving, and the hatchery industry is gaining experience, so I don’t think it will take long to see in-ovo sexing in many more countries around the world.”

Overall, in-ovo sexing systems are ready for prime time, Fergus emphasizes. “In the U.S., there are now eggs from companies like NestFresh and Kipster that are on store shelves and available to consumers. So the technology is very much viable and available at a commercial scale in the U.S.” It hasn’t spread beyond a handful of higher-welfare egg companies, but even Walmart is looking into the possibility, according to Fergus. There is now also U.S. pet food containing eggs sorted by in-ovo sexing.

In Fergus’ view, “retailers are the next step.” And retailers may need to be pushed by consumers. The issue is that many consumers don’t know that male chicks are regularly killed in egg production, or that there are now mature technologies to avoid that. According to Sencer, Whole Foods now stocks NestFresh nationwide, but has not exactly shouted from the rooftops that a minority of eggs it sells are now being produced without culling. Other retailers have been even more cautious.

Positively, while many animal welfare issues remain stubbornly mired in the difficulty of political and behavioral change, technology may be the key to finally ending the unnecessary killing of male chicks in the egg industry. “It’s the lack of a solution that has kept this practice alive for so long. But the solutions are here, and they work,” Fergus says.

Nancy Roulston, senior director of corporate policy and animal science at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), agrees that this is a win-win. “It is rare for a source of farm animal suffering to be completely preventable, and ending male chick culling is one of them thanks to in-ovo sexing technology,” Roulston comments. “It isn’t just animals who benefit from in-ovo sexing technology: relieving hatchery workers from having to participate in the practice of male chick culling uplifts the entire egg sector, including those who buy and sell eggs and do not want to support inhumane practices.”