After the quick-peel orange, now it’s the ready-boiled egg

For anyone too busy even to boil an egg there’s now the ideal shopping solution – eggs that are already hard boiled.

The only catch is you’ll have to shell out double the price of a regular raw egg for the convenience.

Noble Foods hopes its Fresh And Tasty hard-boiled eggs range will boost the number of eggs eaten at home and on the move by busy consumers.

The launch comes only a week after a quick-peel orange came on to the market to help combat falling orange sales among the time-conscious.

The hard-boiled free-range eggs, being launched at selected Sainsbury’s convenience stores, are priced at

£1.99 for a pack of four. The 50p-a-time price-tag means shoppers will be paying twice as much as those who buy six free-range eggs at the present £1.52 supermarket price.

Noble Foods marketing director Fin Cottle said: ‘Eggs are so easily forgotten when menu planning at home. They can be seen as a fridge-filler and consumers need to be reminded that they are a versatile, value-for-money alternative to

other proteins.’

Current egg consumption per capita in the UK is 140 a year, much lower than France at 167 and the US at 175.