Poached eggs leave farmgate stall bare
Normally run on an honesty system, the farmgate sale of Gippsland Free Range Eggs at Willow Grove has been forced to close after a passer-by stripped their farm gate stall bare.
The theft left James and Julie Hill shattered. With current demand for supermarkets and other outlets at its peak, they said the farmgate sales was a way of continuing to serve their locals and regular customers.
“We try to keep our eggs local and supply local people.
“Our customers say we love your eggs so they come for a drive. It makes us proud to be doing this for our customers.
“It’s just something we like to do for the locals.
“It breaks our hearts when something like this happens,” Julie said.
James and Julie are third generation farmers on the Moe-Willow Grove Rd family farm.
They knew their 73-hectare property wasn’t really viable to continue running as a dairy farm so they made the move to diversify into eggs and beef.
They collect 2000 eggs a day and have established a strong market for their eggs locally and recently expanding into Melbourne farmer’s markets.
Last week demand escalated to levels that they could not maintain.
“It’s just crazy,” Julie said. “The chooks don’t know about coronavirus. The girls can only lay one egg a day.”
James said they had increased orders to customers where they could but they were simply at a point they could not spread themselves any wider.
Local supermarkets had been stripped bare of their eggs within an hour of stocking shelves last week.
But it was the theft from their farm gate sales that amazed them the most.
James and Julie said they’d had the occasional theft, but it had never been a trend.
James said they had restocked the farmgate sales with five dozen packs and two trays of 30 eggs.
About an hour later they went out there and discovered all the eggs had been stolen and no money left in the honesty box.
“Eggs are a staple so people want them,” James said. “With normal demand we keep up, just. We sell everything we produce anyway and now it’s a matter of trying to stretch it out.”