A poultry farmer has spent 800 hours created a groundbreaking egg invention stemming from his love of Wallace and Gromit.
Phil Ashton, who farms in in Boston, Lincolnshire, has the perfect solution for the perfect poached egg.
It all began when Phil calculated over the course of his lifetime he’d spend 1825 hours – 76 days – in the kitchen perfecting poached eggs.
He said that was a staggering amount of time he’d rather spend on his farm, taking care of his hens.
Keen to find a way to win back precious time, he had an idea, stemming from his love of Wallace and Gromit. A device that would not only make the perfect poached eggs every time, but would take the work out of breakfast.
The eggcentric man, who supplies eggs to the Happy Egg Company, says he can now poach the perfect egg in two minutes and 42 seconds, and it’s a far cry from the usual method.
He told Manchester Evening News: "The machine really does make the perfect poached egg every time and if you are very particular like I am, it takes away the daily frustration of slightly under or overdone eggs.
"The eggs are timed to precision for 162 seconds."
"Growing up on a farm I always had a knack for making things and my wife’s been calling me Wallace for years."
Working in his tool shed over the summer, Phil designed and built the breakfast machine by hand.
At the press of a button, 13 motors and gears – controlled by eight microprocessors – are fired up. Carried by crane, each egg is cracked and dropped into boiling water from the perfect height.
A sieve then picks each perfectly poached egg out of the pan and onto a plate. So Phil gets to spend more time with his hens out on the farm – without missing out on his favourite dish to start the day.
