Hamburg - German supermarket chain Lidl says its egg supply is getting tight as the Netherlands, the European Union's top supplier, extended an export ban on eggs and other poultry products due to bird flu.
"Lidl is observing the situation in the Netherlands very attentively," a Lidl spokesperson said. "Currently the delivery situation to Lidl Germany is tight."
A three-day, nationwide Dutch ban on the transport of all poultry, eggs and related farm products was on Thursday extended until Sunday after bird flu was found on a second Dutch farm. A third bird flu case was discovered on Friday.
Some 700 Dutch poultry farms house 98 million chickens and export 6 billion eggs a year, with much going to neighbouring Germany.
Two of the three Dutch infections are the H5N8 strain of the illness, which has also been found on farms in Germany and Britain in recent weeks.
Tests showed that the bird flu viruses in Europe are similar to one that devastated poultry flocks in South Korea, the intergovernmental World Organisation for Animal Health said.