A chicken farm in Castenray, in the province of Limburg, claims to have produced the first CO2 neutral egg, public broadcaster NOS reports.

Kipster, which advertises itself as ‘the world’s most animal and environmentally friendly chicken farm’, says the CO2 neutral egg is a ‘world first’.

‘Our chickens are white. They weigh less than brown chickens and eat less. So we save on raw materials. They eat what are called ‘residual flows’ such as left over bread and agricultural by-products. We don’t feed them corn, for instance,’ chicken farmer Ruud Zanders told NOS.

The farm has also been fitted with 1,100 solar panels to boost sustainable energy usage. ‘We use 40% of the energy we generate and sell the rest. This makes our farm, and the eggs, CO2 neutral,’ NOS quotes Zanders as saying.

The chickens’ living quarters, which were designed with the input of the animal protection organisation Dierenbescherming, consists of a glass covered inside garden with trees and tree trunks for the birds, and two outside spaces. ‘Retired’ chickens, the Kipster website writes, ‘are not dumped in Africa to disrupt the market there but are processed here into high-quality products’.

The eggs will cost 23 to 24 cents apiece compared to 16 to 17 cents for a conventional free-range egg. The entire stock for the next five years has been sold to supermarket Lidl, where they will go on sale later this month, NOS said.