ABOVE: Being cold smoked, the eggs remain raw, but the process eliminates bacteria.
A good wedding anniversary present can be hard to find, but when Julie Kos bought her husband Paul a smoker as a gift, they had no idea how life-changing it would be.
They started smoking everything and, as egg farmers, they gave eggs a go too.
It was a light-bulb moment.
Now, the Victorian couple are the proud owners of The Smoked Egg Co, producing – an Australian first – raw cold smoked eggs that are free from bacteria.
“I decided to make a quiche with the smoked eggs,” Julie said.
“My husband told me he hates quiches, but it was a case of bad luck because if we smoked eggs, I could get the GST back on the smoking unit!
“But when we actually tried it, he said to me ‘You’ve taken this quiche to the next level’.”
Julie described it as eating bacon and eggs, without having the bacon.
“So, it’s very healthy,” she said.
“Eggs are nature’s vitamin capsules as far as I’m concerned.”
And now, there is a slight difference to them.
Julie’s skills as a chef and egg farmer were the perfect combination for the new venture.
Julie was a chef before becoming an egg farmer, so she has combined her two skills perfectly.
The husband-and-wife duo started smoking eggs for flavour profile alone and it took more than nine months to perfect the method.
However, in the end, another aspect of the process became truly ground-breaking.
“Once we got the flavour in there, we wanted to know if the flavour developed over time – which it does,” Julie said.
“I then realised that the egg wasn’t breaking down, which meant we had stopped the ageing process of an egg.”
Egg ageing is the biggest issue for farmers and cafe owners.
To verify her observations, Julie took the eggs for testing and found that the smoked egg did not contain any bacteria even after more than 200 days.
“We decided it’s not worth going any further,” she said.
“Even though it may last for three or four years, I don’t particularly want to eat an egg that old!”
Julie sees huge applications for this technology – if there are other bird flu outbreaks or another pandemic grinds trade to a halt – now eggs can be stockpiled if needed.
The challenge, Julie noted, is educating people about the process, as most consumers may assume a smoked egg is cooked and ready to eat.
Smoked eggs have a completely different flavour profile, transforming the taste of everyday recipes.
However, it is a raw product.
“What we do is, we get an egg, we then naturally smoke wood, encapsulate that smoke, we chill that smoke down,” Julie said.
“So, we are the first chilled smoking method that we know of in the world.
“Cold smoking is usually between 18-35C.
“We go from -4 to positive 7C.”
Julie said there was no reason the same equation couldn’t be used for any type of food that needed refrigeration.
“We don’t change the quality of the protein or the structure of the food,” she said.
“That’s really exciting because we can do meat, we can do flour, we can do rice, and prolong the life any of those products.”
Zooming in on eggs, the process works by opening the pores of the egg and infusing flavour – though at that temperature, it is still entirely raw.
“The pores won’t open up unless it’s in a chilled environment,” Julie said.
“So as an egg producer, we grade our eggs and wash them in warm water.
Julie Kos and her husband Paul are the proud owners of The Smoked Egg Co, and their eggs are smoking!
“The reason we do that is, if we did it in cold water, all the impurities in that water would go straight back into the egg and it would carry bacteria.”
The couple have taken a patent out on their find.
“My bank account is not very happy about it,” Julie said.
“It’s quite an expensive process.
“But we’ve just sold a licence to Saudi Arabia, we’re talking with people in the United Kingdom, we’re talking with the egg board in America, and have sold a licence over there and also the Netherlands.
“We’re starting to gain ground, but nobody really understands what it’s about because they see the word ‘smoked’ and they think it’s cooked, which it’s not.”
If you’re interested in sampling these delights, The Smoked Egg Co is now in major supermarkets.
“We’ve got select Woolworths stores in Victoria, NSW and Queensland, and we’ve got Coles in Victoria and NSW,” Julie said.
“My ultimate dream for the future is seeing smoked eggs in every shop and supermarket around the world.
“It’s going to take us a while to get there.
“Being a female founder of this product, I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved.
“It has been a very hard journey, but I think we’re nearly there.”
For shoppers who find a box of The Smoked Egg Co product in the supermarket, Julie has some recipe ideas – smoked lemon curd, smoked vanilla ice cream, smoked quiche, smoked mayonnaise and even the simple smoked poached egg.
Australian Farmers