Western Morning News (Saturday)
Poultry farmers call for fairer pay from stores
POULTRY farmers are calling for greater ‘transparency and fairness in the food chain’ as costs skyrocket forcing some to stop restocking hens and even cull them early to prevent further losses.
While some stores still have well stocked shelves, others are running short of eggs and some supermarkets have introduced restrictions on how many customers can purchase.
A combination of rising costs for everything from heating to feed and laying pullets, combined with avian flu and supply chain problems have led to a crisis in the egg industry.
Pete Olds, farmer and partner at Cornhill Farm near Camborne, has 14,000 free range hens and said they gave up their supermarket contract three years ago and now focus primarily on local sales – a decision he says has paid off.
Mr Olds, 37, said: “Farmers out there are making huge losses and supermarkets are just not passing on the inflation they’ve put on their prices in the supermarket.”
He added that supermarkets have put up their prices by around 55/60p per dozen but farmers are only seeing around 18p of that.
“There’s a huge English-Channel sized gap between what the farmer should be getting and is getting,” he said. “I think farmers just want a bit of transparency and fairness in the food chain”.
He added: “Our inflation is running at about 30% at the moment, whereas general inflation is about 11%, so our costs are rocketing up all the time and we’re just not being paid fairly for the great British produce that we’re making.”
The British Free Range Egg Producers’ Association (BFREPA) has been warning since March this year that there would be a shortage of eggs by Christmas.
Farmer John Ridout, a senior partner at a family-run farm near Liskeard, said supermarkets have not been forthcoming in increasing the money they pay back to producers.
However, he said that things are now slowly starting to change, with supermarkets realising that they need to increase what they pay farmers. He said it has been very difficult for packers and farmers: “All I’ve seen is prices go up in the supermarket and I don’t believe that’s been passed back to us.”
Mr Ridout said that all base costs have gone up, including diesel, labour, power and insurance. He added: “We’re not greedy people, we just want to make a living”.
The National Farmers’ Union has called for an “urgent investigation” into egg supply chain disruption which has led to shortages and rationing in some shops in the Westcountry and across the UK.
It said Defra should look into whether a declaration should be made under the Agriculture Act 2020 to ensure “much-needed support” for egg producers.
The Government said the situation is being monitored but insisted the UK’s food supply chain is “resilient” and that no “significant impact” is expected overall.
Marks & Spencer and Morrisons are the latest grocers to join Tesco, Asda and Lidl in rationing the sale of boxes of eggs.