Poultry business expands to meet increasing demand

Poultry continues to be the backbone of a family-run farming enterprise which is the region's biggest egg production business.

Brothers Stephen and Richard are the fourth generation of the Tulip family involved with the business at Lintz Hall Farm, Burnopfield, Gateshead, Co. Durham, where the operation is expanding to 100,000 birds, half of which are free-range, supplying 80,000 eggs a day all over the North East.

Their great-grandfather George Tulip started the family interest in poultry, working for the Government during the war, encouraging people to produce eggs in their own back yards.

It was his son, also George, who managed to save up enough money while working in hatcheries and poultry units in the south of England to buy his first three acres of land at nearby Sunniside.

By 1961, when he bought the ex-Coal Board Lintz Hall Farm, he had 15,000 birds and the business expanded from there.

The farm's original 128 acres were gradually added to to make up today's 500 ring-fenced acreage and until recently, half the farm was arable and carried up to 500 head of cattle, which included a 115-cow suckler herd.