German startup Orbem has begun operating its first MRI-based in-ovo sexing system in the US, expects a second installation to go live in mid-August, and says a third US project is now scheduled for 2027.
The firm—which was founded in Munich in 2019 and set up an office in Texas in 2025—has not yet named the hatcheries involved.
“We expect an announcement from one of the big retailers very soon,” head of global business development Jennifer Volz told AgFunderNews.
In-ovo sexing technologies determine the sex of chicks before they hatch, enabling hatcheries to remove male layer eggs from the process rather than incubating them for 21 days and killing the chicks shortly after hatching. Male chick culling has now been banned in Germany and France and will be prohibited in Italy next year.
Norway, Switzerland and the Netherlands are also moving to phrase out male chick culling, although this has largely been driven by coordinated action within industry rather than government pressure.
Three commercial approaches to in-ovo sexing
According to Volz, three approaches have now been commercialized and proven at industrial scale.
Orbem’s non-invasive “Genus Focus” system combines magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with AI to look inside the egg and identify the developing embryo’s reproductive organs. These begin differentiating from around day six, although Orbem’s algorithms currently perform best on days 11 and 12.
Traditional MRI scans are costly, slow and require skilled operators to interpret the resulting images. Orbem claims its AI-powered approach can acquire and analyze an image in under a second, making MRI practical on industrial hatchery lines with 99.5% accuracy.
“By combining MRI with artificial intelligence, we can drastically reduce the cost so the speed of acquiring an image is reduced from 15 minutes to a split second and analysis of the image is completely automated by AI.”
Its modular platform can be configured for smaller hatcheries producing around one million females annually or scaled to process up to 24,000 eggs an hour, she claimed.
A second non-invasive approach—commercialized through the CHEGGY system developed by AAT—uses hyperspectral imaging to detect differences in feather coloration between male and female embryos. However, the technique only works with brown-layer genetics in which the sexes develop different feather colors, limiting its applicability in white-layer markets such as the US, claimed Volz.
The third established approach, deployed by HatchTech Group, removes a small sample of allantoic fluid from the egg and uses DNA analysis to determine its sex. While increasingly automated, the process requires more personnel and punctures the eggshell, which has limited its appeal, claims Volz, who noted that early players in this space such as PLANTegg and In Ovo are no longer on the market.
According to Volz, all three technologies now reduce the share of male chicks allowed to hatch to below 1%, roughly matching the accuracy of manual sexing after hatch.
Regulatory bans are not the only driver
Orbem’s technology is now operating in France, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Norway, with conversations now taking place in other markets including Italy and Scandinavia.
In Switzerland, hatcheries, egg producers, packing stations, retailers and an animal-welfare organization joined a roundtable managed by the country’s poultry association. The group established a common implementation timetable and ran a formal procurement process before selecting Orbem for the country’s two hatcheries.
Norway’s transition was market-led, with one hatchery’s adoption prompting its competitor to follow.
The Netherlands is more complicated. Its hatcheries are already equipped with in-ovo sexing systems, largely because they supply Germany, where male chick culling is banned. They could theoretically convert all domestic production, claimed Volz, but retailers have proved resistant to the tech, which adds about a cent per egg to the retail price, she claimed.
The country is also a major exporter. A nationwide mandate could make Dutch products less competitive in overseas markets where customers are unwilling to pay an animal-welfare premium.
Volz said Sweden, Denmark and Finland are showing signs of following Norway, while Italy’s ban on male-chick culling is due to take effect in January. Discussions are also underway in the UK, although she described progress there as slow.
At the EU level, Volz expects some form of collective action eventually, but said the challenge is designing rules that do not disproportionately increase the cost of a commodity product in lower-income member states or put European exporters at a disadvantage.
‘Pure pay-per-use’ model
Rather than selling the MRI equipment to hatcheries, Orbem operates a pay-per-use model, installing and maintaining the machinery and providing the complete sexing service, reducing the upfront capex investment required from customers. Hatcheries may still have to expand their facilities, create space for the equipment or upgrade utilities, however.
Introducing in-ovo sexing typically adds around one cent to the retail price of each table egg, according to Volz, a price that some engaged customers are willing to pay in the US, although it remains to be seen whether this can move from niche to mainstream, she acknowledged.
This remains a sticking point in the US commodity egg market, where key player United Egg Producers (UEP) told AgFunderNews that in-ovo sexing must become “economically and operationally feasible” before it can be widely adopted.
“In the end, the cost is transferred to the consumer,” she said.
Volz estimates that installing in-ovo sexing systems at just 12–15 large US layer hatcheries could cover a substantial share of national egg production, reflecting the highly concentrated nature of the chick supply chain. It would then take roughly two years to replace the country’s laying flock, during which the proportion of eggs produced without chick culling would gradually increase.
While hatcheries can save some money by eliminating manual sexing and freeing up incubator capacity, these savings are not large enough by themselves to pay for in-ovo sexing, however.
And while Orbem also has “Genus Scale” tech that can detect whether eggs are fertilized, which can unlock more capacity for hatcheries as unfertilized eggs are not put into incubators, this “does not really impact business case for in ovo sexing,” acknowledged Volz.
However, with three projects in the US market, she remains “extremely optimistic” about the firm’s prospects there.
MRI tech’s next frontier: QC for fresh produce
The next frontier for Orbem’s non-invasive imaging tech is in fresh produce and nuts, where firms can use its “Genus Echo” tech for grading, quality control and defect detection without relying on guesswork or destructive sampling.
The tech, which is being deployed in Spain this summer on watermelons with partner JimboFresh, uses the firm’s signature MRI + AI analysis approach to detect internal defects without cutting the fruit open.
Scanning fruits individually enables firms to remove only defective products, monitor quality, improve consistency and reduce food waste, said Volz, who noted that some firms currently ditch whole truckloads of produce after cutting up a single sample, potentially wasting large amounts of fruit unnecessarily.
Unlike in-ovo sexing—which is driven in part by regulation, retailer commitments, and a willingness to pay for improved animal welfare—the business case in fresh produce is pretty clearcut, Volz acknowledged.
Orbem is ‘already profitable’
Orbem—which described itself as “already profitable” earlier this year—raised €55.5 million ($65 million) in a Series B round announced in January following a €30 million ($34 million) Series A round in 2023.
However, it does not assume MRI will remain the dominant in-ovo sexing solution indefinitely, said Volz.
Emerging approaches include volatile analysis, hyperspectral imaging systems, and genetic technologies that can make the sex of an egg identifiable before incubation, potentially a game-changer although they come with greater regulatory hurdles.
“There might be a superior technology where it makes sense for us to step back and focus our efforts on other industries or other applications of poultry.”
In-ovo sexing technology now covers 40% of the EU’s commercial layer flock, according to a new market penetration report from nonprofit Innovate Animal Ag. The report, which draws on proprietary surveys of in-ovo sexing suppliers, key stakeholder interviews, and public data, estimates that more than 281 million female chicks have been selected using in-ovo sexing since 2021.
“It’s heartening to see the progress in-ovo sexing has made around the world,” said Innovate Animal Ag CEO Robert Yaman. “Five years ago this was a germ of an idea in a handful of hatcheries. Today it’s the standard across over a third of Europe. That’s about as fast as an industry-wide change ever happens.”
Further reading:
Spring Innovation Fund debuts as first venture philanthropy firm dedicated to animal welfare tech
Kipster is second firm in US to commit to in ovo sexing tech to end culling of male chicks
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