In the world of egg production, there’s a recurring battle that happens every time a settlement doesn’t add up. It’s the friction between the Production Manager on the farm and the Processing Manager at the plant.
When settlement day comes around and the numbers don’t match, someone’s bonus is on the line. And someone is going to get blamed. The production team is certain their houses are hitting their targets. The processing team is certain the grading machine doesn’t lie.
But in a large-scale operation, even a 3% discrepancy isn’t a rounding error — it can represent 30,000 eggs or more. In an industry where performance reviews and bonuses are tied to these percentages, that discrepancy isn’t just a nuisance. It’s a crisis for your team culture.
So who’s right? Without accurate data, it’s just one person’s word against another’s.
Why IR Counters Fall Short
For years, the industry has relied on traditional infrared (IR) counters. They were designed for conventional houses with simple, narrow belts where eggs present one to three at a time — not cage-free belts where belt rollback becomes a real problem due to the weight of eggs on a 14-inch belt. That fundamental mismatch is why they’ve earned their poor reputation.
IR counters often fail to distinguish between egg sizes, missing “mediums” and “smalls” entirely — especially on cross conveyors or rod conveyors where eggs sit behind a dam and fall too far below the sensor to register. That creates a gray area in your data that nobody can explain and everybody resents. The processing team calls them “phantom eggs.” The production team calls it a grading machine problem. Neither side is wrong. Neither side can prove it.
This isn’t just a technology problem. It’s a breakdown of trust within your team — fingers pointed instead of problems solved.
A Single Source of Truth
Prism Controls has spent over 40 years building computer and control systems for egg production operations. We didn’t start as a software company that discovered agriculture. We started on the farm — and we’ve been solving exactly this kind of operational problem ever since.
We know you don’t just need a counter. You need a Source of Truth.
EggSight® is an AI-driven vision system that delivers 99% counting accuracy by seeing eggs the way a human would — but with the speed and consistency a human never could. Because it uses high-definition vision instead of light beams, egg size and belt placement don’t fool it.
Install EggSight® at the exit of your houses and the dispute stops before it starts. If EggSight® confirms 100,000 eggs left the house and the plant shows 95,000, you don’t have a counting argument anymore. You have a specific, locatable problem at the grader or sorting table — and now you can actually fix it instead of fighting about it.
You don’t have to wait for settlement day to get that clarity either. EggSight® verifies your counts in real-time, so your production manager isn’t guessing and your processing manager isn’t defending. They’re both looking at the same number.
Upkeep is minimal by design. Unlike IR counters that demand constant cleaning and recalibration, EggSight® is built for the rugged reality of a working farm. Because it’s AI-driven, the Prism team can optimize your counting models and troubleshoot remotely — no costly on-site service calls, no downtime waiting for a technician.
From Conflict to Collaboration
We heard it directly from a cage-free producer we work with: “My guys are at each other’s throats because their bonuses are tied to these numbers.”
That’s not a technology failure. That’s a data failure — and it’s one that’s entirely solvable.
When everyone in your operation is working from the same accurate number, the argument disappears. You stop asking whose fault it is and start asking how to improve. That shift — from conflict to collaboration — is what accurate data actually buys you. The egg counter is just how you get there.Ready to end the argument? Request a conversation with our team and see how EggSight® fits your operation.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. We are dedicated to helping our farmers sleep better at night knowing they have the control technology they need to feed the world.