Egg-Tech Prize Phase II Finalists

In Ovo is a Dutch company that develops high-tech solutions to improve animal welfare and sustainability in the poultry sector. In Ovo’s Systems Engineer, Leonard van Bommel, is further developing and scaling In Ovo’s pioneering in-ovo sexing technology called Ella®. Ella measures a naturally occurring biomarker in the embryo’s allantoic fluid, or “waste bag” in the egg. The concentration of this biomarker differs between the sexes, allowing Ella to sort the eggs by sex with high accuracy on the ninth day of development, instantly stop the incubation of male eggs and leave the eggs intact for processing in other capacities. The Egg-Tech Prize is allowing In Ovo to increase Ella’s accuracy, capacity and ability to sort eggs earlier to offer a solution to end male chick culling worldwide. Learn more about Ella from an egg’s perspective.

HatchTech B.V. is a Dutch technology company serving global food producers. Its Research Manager, Dr. Carla van der Pol, is using hyperspectral imaging and Raman spectroscopy to develop a commercially applicable optical technique for in-ovo sexing. Van der Pol’s team (including experts from Wageningen University and Research, Adaptation Physiology Group) is extracting small droplets of the embryos’ allantoic fluid from the egg at the eighth day of incubation using existing fluid uptake machinery and analyzing it through spectral technologies. The light’s wavelength patterns reveal whether the developing chick is male or female. Eggs containing a male embryo are then removed from the incubation process and can be used in other ways, while female embryos are returned to the incubator until hatch. This process is harmless, safe, pain free for the embryos, and it does not require consumables or long waiting times for the eggs between measurements and egg sorting.

SensIT is a California-based chemical sensor technology company founded by Thomas Turpen. The only Phase II Prize finalist who was also a Phase I finalist, Turpen is continuing development of SensIT’s innovative microchip-based chemical sensor that captures volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released from individual eggs as early as eight days into incubation. Machine learning can interpret the VOCs to classify eggs by sex. This additional Prize funding is supporting the integration of the microchip sensors with a custom automated egg handling machine that sorts the sexed eggs using an inexpensive, non-invasive, automated, high-throughput method. The researchers also propose to test this technology at commercial hatcheries.