“Positive momentum for in-ovo sexing in the US continues as a third in-ovo sexing machine heads to the US market!

Respeggt, an in-ovo sexing technology supplier, and Hendrix ISA, a genetics company and hatchery operator, announced that a Respeggt Circuit will be delivered to the US in February 2025. The Circuit will be installed in Hendrix’s Grand Island, Nebraska hatchery, which has the capacity to serve 10% of the US layer market.

This announcement marks a significant milestone, as the Respeggt machine will be the first in the US capable of identifying the sex of white layers in addition to brown layers–particularly notable given that white eggs comprise a majority of US production.”

From Innovate Animal Ag.

“In a plant north of Los Angeles, machines now squeeze as many as 1.6 million pounds of the fruit with hardly any human help. The facility, larger than the average Costco store at roughly 190,000 square feet, then ships bags of juice to Chick-fil-A locations, where workers add water and sugar to whip up the chain’s trademark lemonade.

The automated plant frees up in-store staff to serve customers faster, according to the company. Squeezing lemons was a tedious task that added up to 10,000 hours of work a day across all locations and resulted in many injured fingers.”

From Bloomberg.

“The Northern giant hornet, more commonly known as the ‘murder hornet,’ has been eradicated in the U.S., agriculture officials said Wednesday.

The ominously nicknamed invasive species was confirmed to be in the U.S. in 2019 after officials in Washington state received and verified two reports of the hornet. Efforts quickly began to track and get rid of them.

The 2-inch-long hornet, with a stinger longer than that of a typical wasp, can deliver potent venom, but is largely dangerous to bees and other insects, not humans. Eradication efforts started because of the threat the hornet posed to bees and agriculture across the country.”

From Yahoo News.

In the classic 1990 holiday movie Home Alone, the McCallister family orders 10 pizzas and the bill comes to $122.50 (plus tip). Unskilled workers at the time were earning around $6.03 an hour. That would put the time price of the 10 pizzas at 20.3 hours, or about 2 hours per pizza.

Jadrian Wooten and Chris Clarke over at Monday Morning Economist conducted a price check on how much 10 basic cheese and pepperoni pizzas cost today at a Little Caesars near the McCallisters’ home. It came to only $91.98 (plus tip). So, the nominal price of pizza actually shrank!

Unskilled workers are earning closer to $17.17 an hour today, so that would put the time price of 10 pizzas at 5.35 hours, or about 32 minutes per pizza. The time price of pizza has fallen by 73.6 percent. That means that for the time it took to earn the money to buy one pizza in 1990, you get 3.8 pizzas today. That’s a 280 percent increase in personal pizza abundance.

Since 1990, the US population has increased by 36.3 percent, from 248 million to 340 million. Each 1 percent increase in population corresponded to a 7.71 percent increase in pizza abundance.

If you started your first job in 1990 and went from being an unskilled worker to a blue collar worker in 2024, your hourly compensation (wages and benefits) increased from $6.03 an hour to $38 an hour. Your personal pizza abundance went from one pizza to 8.4 pizzas. Enjoy the party.

This article was published at Gale Winds on 10/22/2024.