Eggs are an important part of the human diet and are consumed all over the world as shell eggs (Table eggs) or as egg products (e.g. liquid, frozen or dried egg white, egg yolk or whole egg) used as ingredient in many foodstuffs. The safety of eggs is thus a major concern for both egg industry and consumers. Generally, the inside of a chicken egg is considered as sterile immediately after laying (Qi et al., 2020), but the surface of the egg shell is contaminated with a thousand to one million bacteria as the intestinal bacteria of the hens can adhere to the eggshell surface. Moreover, soil bacteria from the poultry farm environment can also adhere to the egg's surface after laying and becoming dominant with time (Hatta & Kubo, 2024). Fortunately, eggs have a remarkable arsenal of antimicrobial defenses (cuticle, egg shell, shell membranes, alkaline pH in egg white, antimicrobial molecules in egg white, vitelline membrane) that can, however, be affected by the conditions during egg production, collection, packaging, storage, and manufacturing in case of egg products (Baron et al., 2024). Signifcant advances in egg safety have improved our understanding between egg quality and safety and the risk of foodborne pathogens as well as mitigation strategies.