BFREPA/Elanco Egg Producer of the Year Awards
A couple who were honoured with the BFREPA/Elanco Egg Producer of the Year Award by the British Free Range Egg Producers' Association (BFREPA) were described as the "perfect" producers by John Bowler, founder and chairman of the John Bowler Group.
This year the BFREPA awards were sponsored by Elanco Animal Health.
Bon and Helen Kingery, who farm in Beccles, Suffolk, were presented with the producer of the year award for producers who have been in the business for more than five years during a ceremony at the BFREPA conference. John Bowler, who stood up to pay tribute to the couple, said the Kingerys had first contacted him 17 years ago.
Since then, they had had 15 flocks through their farm and their production could only be described as "phenomenal." He said, "To have so many good flocks, such consistency, I have never known anything like it before." He said their secret was day-to day-good management. "Everything is perfect all the time. It's been a pleasure to deal with them."
They started with free range hens in the mid 1990s. Previously Bob worked as a maintenance engineer for Bernard Matthews and Helen worked in a plastics packing plant. The move into farming was a huge change for them, starting a free range unit from scratch, but Roger Gent, the new BFREPA chairman said that the couple were amongst the most consistently high performing producers in the country.
The other producer of the year award winner is, compared to the Kingerys, just starting out on his career in the sector. Alan Robb of W & C S Robb is about to complete his second flock on his farm at Mauchline in Ayrshire, but he has already been named Scottish poultry farmer of the year.
Alan is a Happy Egg producer with a 16,000-bird unit.
His first flock achieved 330 eggs per bird and his current flock is ahead of the Lohmann target at 71 weeks. Roger Gent said that the farm was run very well, it was kept very neat and tidy and scored 91 per cent on the Noble Foods audit.
This year BFREPA presented a special award for lifetime achievement to one of the key figures in the United Kingdom egg industry - former British Egg Industry Council (BEIC) chairman Andrew Parker.
Andrew served as BEIC chairman from 1996 to 2012, and was instrumental in reversing a long-term decline in egg sales and helping to oversee a renaissance in the industry.
He persuaded BEIC subscribers, who now account for 90 per cent of UK egg production, to invest in the re-launch of the Lion mark to overcome food safety concerns and help promote British eggs, and he led a campaign to tell key opinion-formers about a new-style egg industry which had accepted and was dealing with the salmonella problem.
The decline in sales of eggs was reversed, and the UK industry’s achievements were recognised by the International Egg Commission, which presented the Lion campaign with the coveted Golden Egg Award in 1999, 2005 and 2010 for the best international egg marketing programme. In many respects, the Lion mark is envied by other sectors of British agriculture.
Andrew Parker was presented with the industry’s top award by the British Poultry Council/BOCM Pauls in 1999 for his tireless effort on behalf of the egg industry. In 2002 he received an OBE for his services to the industry.
Another special award, for outstanding achievement, went to one of the founders of BFREPA, Roger Hosking, and his wife Beryl.
Whilst Roger was active in the creation and early development of BFREPA, it is for the work that he and Beryl have done with troubled youngsters and their support for poor communities that BREPA presented the outstanding achievement award.
Highfields Happy Hens was originally started as an interest for the residents at the hostel for homeless teenagers the couple were running. The first pullets arrived just two weeks after Edwina Curry made her infamous salmonella statement.
Roger remembers his father phoning him to say, “Have you seen the news, when are your pullets coming? Cancel them as no-one will eat eggs.” But the couple pressed ahead, they built a shed each year until they had 20,000 free range hens, and Roger says that the hens helped angry aggressive hands become gentle hands, essential for egg collecting. The young people also learned to count.
In 1999 the couple launched Highfield Happy Hens in Bulgaria. Another one was launched in Honduras and another in Uganda. In 2001 Roger joined forces with the Rev Gordon Gatwood from the Rank organisation to start the National Care Farming Initiative. There are now 179 Care Farms in the UK. In 2001 Highfield officially became a school for youngsters excluded from school.
Over the years Roger and Beryl have won a string of national awards for their work. In 2011 Roger received the MBE. He and his wife Beryl have now been honoured by BFREPA, the organisation he helped to found, for showing that hens can do much more that simply lay eggs.
Amongst the other awards presented at the BFREPA conference this year was the marketing initiative of the year award, which went to the Happy Egg Co. celebratory party and picnic quiche pack.
Food business of the year was Cardiff-based brewing and restaurant company SA Brain & Co Ltd - recognised for its decision to use only Freedom Food eggs throughout its chain of 250 pubs, restaurants and hotels. The award for breakthrough of the year went to egg processor D Wise of Shropshire. It has been recycling old egg trays into brickettes to burn to generate energy.
This year's competition for the best tray of eggs at the conference was won by Wendy Vernon. Second was Paul Atherton and third was Gareth Morgan.
The BFREPA calendar photo competition was won by Lorna Naismith.
The award for best stand at this year's conference went to Noble Foods. A total of 61 exhibitors took part in this year's conference, which was held for the first time at the National Motorcycle Museum near Birmingham. Nearly 500 delegates attended the conference.
