United Kingdom (U.K.) egg producer Farmlay, is to invest around GBP2.4 million (US$3.1 million) in a new egg grader and building alterations.
The grader will increase the company’s current capacity from 500 cases per hour to 900 and comes in response to growing U.K. demand for eggs coupled with a more favorable investment climate for egg producers.
Farmlay Managing Director Iain Chapman notes that demand for eggs in the U.K. continues to rise and that the longer contracts recently introduced by a number of supermarkets have given egg producers more confidence to invest.
More productive, more employees
While he had considered running the company’s current grader for longer hours to respond to this growing demand, this would not have offered a long-term solution and would have come with a degree of risk. Adding the new state-of-the-art grader, from Sanovo, to the company’s current facilities should see a doubling in productivity.
Once the grader is up and running, Chapman notes, Farmlay will hire an additional 10 employees.
Aberdeenshire, Scotland, based Farmlay, is the 11th largest egg packer in the UK amongst the 40 registered with the British Egg Industry Council. It has 1 million hens in production, producing 5 million eggs per week, supplies supermarket chains Aldi and Lidl, along with a number of other retailers and wholesalers.
