Eggcellent start to year as Whanganui cracks it
Breakfast favourite in short supply in some parts of the country
Whanganui supermarkets have been well-stocked with eggs thanks to a local supplier at a time when the breakfast favourite has been in short supply in some parts of New Zealand.
Ian Higgins Poultry Farm Ltd had stepped up supplies when stocks were low in some Whanganui outlets before Christmas.
“We supply other parts of the country through our distribution company, Wholesome NZ, but we always make sure we look after our Whanganui customers,” said director Ian Higgins.
Gordon McIvor and his wife Josie purchased the Four Square Eastbrook in Moana St, Whanganui East, in November and found themselves short of egg supplies before Christmas.
“The eggs were being trucked in from out of town and there was going to be a delay so I called Higgins,” McIvor said.
“They were great and we are now well stocked with fresh, locally produced eggs.”
Higgins said poultry farmers had been “seriously under the pump” for the past three years due in part to the impacts of Covid-19, but there were two major factors facing the industry.
“One is the Government phasing out poultry cages, which are now banned, and the other is the high cost and short supply of building materials,” he said.
“I hate cages and I’m glad they’ve been banned but it has been very hard for smaller operators to become compliant when they have not been able to get building materials and meet the stringent resource-consent requirements.”
Higgins is a third-generation poultry farmer and his son Dave is now the managing director of their business.
“My grandfather started the business in the late 1800s and there’s not much I don’t know about chickens,” said Higgins.
“I remember not so long ago there were around 30 commercial poultry farmers in this district and now there’s really only us.”
Rasmusen’s Poultry Farm, the other long-established Whanganui family business based in Westmere, merged its operations with Heyden Farms Ltd and Henergy Cage-Free Ltd
under the holding company Better Eggs Ltd in 2020.
Rasmusen’s could not be contacted for comment for this story.
Higgins said as a large operation with about 100,000 hens, the business spent more than $5 million over four years on aviary barns or freerange sheds. They phased out their last cages in 2017.
Egg Producers Federation executive director Michael Brooks told