Research
This research project was initiated on July 31, 2014. Any question marks in the spreadsheet cells indicate we have yet to confirm either way on that aspect of the egg. We'll try to add more options as we research further.
Trader Joes: we spoke with Trader Joe's Kirkland who referred us to TJ Corporate Customer Service. Corporate told us they do not carry an egg that is Non-GMO/Antibiotic, corn/soy free. And since they rebrand everything to be the TJ label there's no way to research the producing farmer further. We have no further plans to research product through TJ's.
Whole Foods Bellevue doesn't carry anything that says “non corn” and the representative didn't seem keen on researching things further on my behalf so we dropped it with him. Whole Foods Redmond couldn't answer our questions, took our contact info, and said they'd research it and get back to us.
Tried to contact Duvall Family Grocer but their phone line just disconnects immediately.
The Misty Meadow were the most expensive by far but, interestingly, Redmond PCC says they are usually their best selling egg.
Generally speaking it was pretty difficult to get information over the phone on this type of thing so going forward we'll probably collect pertinent information by in-person visits to stores.
On August 3rd, 2014 we did a side by side comparison of eggs from four different producers: Misty Meadows, Helen the Hen, Palouse Pastured Poultry and Safeway Organics. We found the Palouse to be by far the most colorful of the four and the Misty to be the least colorful. The Misty egg also seemed to have a quite fragile yolk. The Palouse was also the least expensive by a significant margin. Go Palouse! We are planning to do some more side by side comparisons so stay tuned.
On August 17th we did Egg Test Part II. Palouse was the most colorful of the first test so here we compared Palouse to three new egg producers. So this 4-way test was with these eggs:
1) Palouse Pastured Poultry (from Washington state)
2) Vital Farms 'Verde' Pastured egg (108 sq feet per bird. Out of Texas. Purchased at PCC)
3) Chino Valley Ranchers "soy free" and "free range". Out of California, purchased at Whole Foods.
4) Farmer Vince (this is who we get our eggs from. From Washington state)
Findings: Chino Valley was by far the most pale. Farmer Vince and Palouse seemed to be about equally the most colorful of the batch.
On September 2nd, 2014 we did Egg Test Part III. We compared:
1) Palouse Pastured Poultry (from Washington state)
2) Mission Mountain (from Montana, available through Azure Standard)
3) Wenceslao Farm (backyard farmers from Snoqualmie Washington. Pastured, soy, corn and GMO free. Possibly available through Farmer's Cellar in the future)
Findings: Palouse were the darkest in color and the yolk stood up the most. The Wenceslao egg was next in both color and how much the yolk appeared to stand up and last was the Mission Mountain egg in both color and the flat appearance of the yolk.