Pride of brand is worth backing says Farm Pride CEO Bruce De Lacy, who last week announced positive proof that every free range egg – from farm to shop – was guaranteed to come off company and contract farms.
The significant investment in scientific authorisation – with statistical testing carried out by New Zealand company Oritain – comes on the back of a rapidly changing interface between producer and consumer in which the ultimate buyer has increasing power.
To date the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has successfully prosecuted six so-called free range egg producers for failing to sell the right article. The damage to brand and reputation went well beyond the ACCC fine.
Celebrating its 80th year, Farm Pride remains the only listed egg company on the Australian Stock Exchange but has undergone several face-lifts, starting as an egg board before turning co-operative. These days Farm Pride processes 12m eggs every week generating an annual turnover of $93.8m from company farms and contractors who supply both free range and cage-bird eggs.
Eggs are booming with the next five years predicted to bring three per cent annual growth. Last year free range eggs made half the market’s value with 40 per cent of the volume.
The company has responded to increasing demand by building three new sheds this calendar year – two of them stocked at 1500 bird/ha and a third at half that rate. Considering the standard calls for 10,000 birds/ha Farm Pride’s new stocking rates are a selling point but to protect that reputation there must be proof of origin.
Average stocking rate across the group is 6500 birds/ha, well below the new Federal standard, which became law last March. As each farm is upgraded their rates will fall.
“For us to feed Australia with eggs at 750 birds/ha, I don’t know if that is possible,” Mr De Lacy said. “But it may well be that 1500 birds/ha will become the new benchmark over time and we want to have flexibility to respond to consumer demand at different density levels.”
Food testing is the future
A bond between chemists and statistical researchers at Otago University has created pioneer tech company, Oritain, poised to reap the benefits of point of sale proof that the food one eats is the right stuff.
Oritain, with 25 employees and a global reach that has accelerated since 2013, approached Farm Pride last year with an offer to monitor its supply chain by testing eggs for point of origin. They offered 93 per cent accuracy with price governed by the complexity of the task.
Science and Operations Director Dr Sam Lind said Oritain’s strengths drew on expertise in statistics and chemistry. Product from eggs to grain to honey, meat to fibre, can be analysed anywhere in the world with data emailed to New Zealand where a product’s unique finger print is analysed.
