Washing eggs is therefore illegal throughout much of Europe. In an interview with Forbes,Chief Executive of Britain's Egg Industry Council Mark Williams gives another reason for the ban on industrial egg-cleaning facilities:

In Europe, the understanding is that [prohibiting the washing and cleaning of eggs] actually encourages good husbandry on farms. It's in the farmers' best interests then to produce the cleanest eggs possible, as no one is going to buy their eggs if they're dirty.

Okay, fine – but then why not just refrigerate the eggs, anyway? Wouldn't this just give unwashed eggs an extra line of defense? Perhaps, but the European Union laws again note that – like washing – refrigeration could actually wind up posing a risk to consumers. Again according to European egg marketing regulations, eggs that are stored cold and later left out at room temperatures could become covered in condensation, "facilitating the growth of bacteria on the shell and probably their ingression into the egg." EU guidelines therefore stipulate that eggs should be transported and stored at as constant a temperature as possible – a temperature between 66.2 °F and 69.8°F in the winter and between 69.8°F and 73.4°F in the summer.

Is BEIC pronounced "beak"?  Because if it is, that's clever.