Selling eggs from a small flock in Australia
Each page below is one state's rules on selling eggs from your own hens, question by question, with a link to the source for each answer.
Pick your state
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Queensland
Can I sell eggs in Queensland? No small-seller exemption.
Safe Food Production Queensland says "It doesn’t matter how many poultry birds or eggs you have, an accreditation with Safe Food is still required" for a person who produces eggs and sells or supplies them, and the Food Production (Safety) Regulation 2014 puts "off-farm sales of eggs" in the egg scheme. The Act does not apply to "primary produce possessed by an individual for the individual’s own use", or to an individual's production that is not supplied; no size line is in it. Each egg a producer supplies carries its own identification, and the Regulation asks it of each carton too. A seller of eggs it did not produce needs no accreditation. Whether a council licence also reaches a stall is not settled (#1076), nor whether a farm with fewer than 100 birds registers as a biosecurity entity first (#1075).
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Tasmania
Can I sell eggs in Tasmania? Yes — Biosecurity Tasmania's forms page says some home flocks need take no action; the Regulations separately define home egg production and exclude it from primary production activities.
Biosecurity Tasmania, which runs the Egg Food Safety Scheme, says on its forms page "If you keep fewer than 20 egg-laying birds" and "only sell or supply directly to friends, family or work colleagues, no action is required." The Primary Produce Safety (Egg) Regulations 2024 take "home egg production", egg production on residential premises that stays within a bird limit and supplies no business, market or wholesale, out of the primary production activities (regs. 3 and 5). A business that "supplies less than 20 dozen eggs in each calendar week" is not required to be accredited but must notify the Chief Inspector and stamp its eggs (reg. 12), and the rest are accredited, with a food safety program audited at least once every 12 months (regs. 12 to 16). Whether a home producer may sell from the gate (#1082), what applies at exactly 20 birds, 20 dozen eggs and 50 birds (#1083), whether the council is also notified (#1084), whether a property code is held (#1085) and whether a home producer selling to friends notifies at all (#1086) are not settled.
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Western Australia
Can I sell eggs in Western Australia? No small-seller exemption.
The Department of Health lists "Egg production, processing (that do not export)" as a food business that registers with its local government, and says of Standard 4.2.5 "No, there are currently no exemptions." on a page last reviewed 01-09-2022. The Act has a food business, other than an exempted one, register before it operates (s 109), and the Food Regulations 2009 take any food production activity a Chapter 4 Standard applies to out of primary food production (reg. 6). The four exempted food businesses in the Regulations are none a small seller by size (regs. 10 to 13). Whether a farm selling eggs in cartons is inside the packaged-food one (#1088), whether a keeper who gives eggs away is a food business (#1089), whether a small seller must have the Food Unit allocate its egg stamp (#1090) and whether a market in another district is notified (#1091) are not settled. A person who owns or purchases stock must register under reg. 7(1); reg. 7(2) exempts a poultry, emu or ostrich owner only if they own fewer than 50 poultry and fewer than 10 emus and ostriches (in any combination), and own or purchase no other species of stock.
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