I heard a while back from C. that Millport Dairy, the longtime vendor at the Greenwich Street Greenmarket that had been in business there for what he estimates is more than two decades, ended their tenure in March. The reason: Greenmarket regulations that required him to refrigerate his eggs. Owner John Stoltzfoos, whose family farm is deep in Amish country in Lancaster, Pa., told C. that he had to absorb $650 in fines for the lack of refrigeration last year; the alternative was the expense of refrigeration and the fact that the cold rotted out his egg cartons.

I checked with a GrowNYC spokesperson: Greenmarket rules say that “producers are responsible for complying with all applicable laws…and that NYS Agriculture and Markets requires that eggs must be stored with an ambient temperature of 45°F or less.”

As of this market season, Greenmarket requires that farmers either have thermometers in every cooler or use an infrared thermometer gun to demonstrate that products are at the storage temperatures required. GrowNYC said that Millport Dairy only wanted to attend in the cooler months, when they felt that they could be in compliance, but when they did not commit to the season, Greenmarket moved forward with securing another farmer for the market. (He is now operating his own farmstand on Broadway and 97th Street.)

Fast forward to this summer, when Yellow Bell Farm and Abundance Acres Farm were brought in as egg suppliers to the Tribeca market. But there’s trouble there too, and more on that in a future post.

A thing on refrigerating eggs: I’ve always wondered why in other countries, like when I spent a college semester in Israel, the eggs were just out in the aisle (and there you brought them hope in a paper bag!). Turns out eggs only have to be refrigerated once they are washed, since washing removes an outer layer of the egg called the cuticle. Once that sheen is removed, the egg is porous and susceptible to bacteria. And we wash them in the States — have since 1970 as required by the US Department of Agriculture — out of fear of salmonella from chicken feces.

NPR did a global history on egg washing, and had this detail: “The coating is like a little safety vest for the egg, keeping water and oxygen in and bad bacteria out. Washing can damage that layer and ‘increase the chances for bacterial invasion’ into pores or hairline cracks in the shell, according to Yi Chen, a food scientist at Purdue University. So we spray eggs with oil to prevent bacteria from getting in, and refrigerate them to keep microorganisms at bay.”

Refrigeration also makes the eggs look nicer and increases the shelf life, from about 20 days to 50 days. But isn’t the whole point to get fresh eggs from the Greenmarket?

So the ultimate question is: which farms wash their eggs?? (Though that still won’t get us around the regulations…)