Selling farm-fresh eggs

Sarah Mahran, <sarah.s.mahran@gmail.com>, posted a question on Comfood about what's required to sell eggs:. Anyone got any help for her? This is a great way to people to get started with small-scale production.

Hi everyone,

I'm a student that's interested in exploring ways to bring local eggs into
grocery stores and supermarkets. I know that there are both USDA & state
regulations surrounding the sale of eggs, and I've spent the past few days
reading about grading, washing, sorting, etc.

1) I'm still unclear as to whether unwashed eggs (i.e. eggs that haven't
gone through the formal process of being washed w/ water @ 90 degrees,
sprayed with sanitizer, etc., but are dry cleaned/wiped, etc) could be sold
legally if they are labeled and documented properly (one USDA document I
read made it sound like such eggs could be labeled as unclassified).

2) The more I'm looking through regulations, the more I feel like it could
potentially be feasible for an organization to obtain grant funding in
order to create a facility that could wash, sanitize, grade & candle eggs
according to regulations so that they could be sold to stores. Does anyone
have any sense of the obstacles that one would face in going through this
process or how arduous it would be?

*Any *information would be greatly appreciated. I'm also happy to pass
along information that I've found to others. Asides from USDA and state
regulations, I've found ATTRA's guide on Small-Scale Egg Handling very
helpful.

Thanks so much.

Sarah