NFU poultry chairman Charles Bourns said: “It’s just a muddle. This creates more instability at a time when producers need stability to continue their expansion into the market place they have created.

“They have not actually concluded anything and we are no nearer to knowing whether the merger will go ahead or not.”

He said it would be ‘difficult’ to sell Stonegate and suggested that, if a sale was made, it was likely to be in the form of industry buy-out or a foreign investor.

He said the merger was motivated by the desire to remove costs and improve efficiency in the supply chain and would be better for producers than having the two biggest players fighting each other for market share.

British Free Range Egg Producers’ Association vice-chairman John Widdowson also predicted it would be difficult to sell Stonegate. “This has just created more uncertainty for egg producers,” he said.

He said many producers who had been waiting to make decisions about where to place their eggs until the situation was resolved now faced a further wait.