Challenges getting the right egg at the right time

Published on : 3 Dec 2021

Pankaj Pancholi

Pankaj Pancholi started his business in 2003 to produce hard boiled eggs for sandwich makers.

Since then, it has expanded to also supply retail hard boiled eggs, egg mayonnaise and poached eggs. In 2019 they won two awards for their ‘perfect, ready to eat poached egg’.

With BREXIT making it very difficult to import egg, they are currently having difficulty getting a consistent supply of the small and medium sized eggs they need. Talking to Zoe Kay he explained that working with Just Egg could be worthwhile outlet for small and medium eggs.

Family business
Pankaj works with his two sons at their purpose-built factory in Leicester. “My background is in food microbiology, I obviously want the business to thrive, but I believe it’s my main responsibility to give people safe, high quality, nutritious, natural products. Nishal is an electronics engineer who worked for Siemens 13 years and manages the day-to-day running of the factory. Sagar is a brilliant food technologist and runs the entire technical side of the process – we make a good team.”

The company boils 1.2-1.5M eggs a week, the first company in the UK to have the machine they use. “We use only graded Class A eggs from both colony and free range producers.

I won’t use seconds as there is too high a risk of contamination and I only use small and medium eggs.” Just Eggs customers include retailers, salad bars, café’s, restaurants, sandwich manufactures, scotch egg and pie and pickle egg manufacturers.

They also work with distributors to sell the products in other parts of UK. “We deal mainly with medium to small businesses and offer them a personal service. We pack eggs or mayonnaise into sizes that suit them, as most won’t have a lot of chilled storage. As it’s my business we can be very flexible to keep our customers happy. The most important elements are quality, service and obviously price.”

Just Egg currently employs 48 people. “We did have 64 but as a lot of our business was in hospitality, I unfortunately had to let some go but all my core people are still with us. Business is picking up now and it can be tricky to get new people but it’s getting better slowly and steadily. We provide a lot of training and look after our staff.”

Product specifics
The boiled eggs are shelled by an automatic machine and packed according to customer requirements. “They have a relatively short shelf-life - 17 days in chilled storage. So, for a sandwich maker with 200 different ingredients, they can’t store a week’s worth of all of them.” They are packed in either plastic buckets from four or six dozen to bulk packs of 144-168 in a plastic bag in a box. “In terms of price the cost of the products is the same, it’s only transport costs than differ according to quantity. There are no such a things as cheap egg products, the price difference comes down to specification – colony or free range and pack size.”

Sagar & Nishal Pancholi

Their egg mayonnaise is also packed in buckets of 1, 2,5 and 10 kilograms. “We are looking for alternatives to the plastic buckets, as we know they are an environmental concern. There is also a cost to the customer to get rid of this bulky item.” There manufacturing site is BRC AA – approved as well as Lion code registered. “In fact, I’m currently helping Lion code to produce a specification specifically for poached eggs.”

Just Egg produces round poached eggs for breakfasts, hot sandwiches, and muffins, as well as oval poached eggs for starters, salads, and main courses. “They are packed in sixes and sold in boxes of 12’’

Market issues
Pankaj’s biggest challenge is getting the right egg at the right time. “I need a continuous supply as we don’t keep a stock of our products. What we cook that day is dispatched in the evening, to make sure our products are as fresh as possible.” With a fluctuating egg market there can be issues with price, but he believes it makes more sense to arrange a long-term contract.

“I say to people - calculate your feed cost and other inputs per egg, add on the margin you want to make and give me a price. If you then agree that price for five or six months, then both of us are making money.” Before BREXIT Pankaj used to get a significant amount of egg from the EU. “Now with all the extra paperwork, checks and logistical issues, it isn’t practical to carry on importing. However, the people I was working with were great and I had long term contracts with them, which gave me more security.”

Just Eggs works with several large packers, but Pankaj sees no reason why he couldn’t deal directly with producers to help then get a fair price for their small and medium eggs. “For those who self-pack/market it would make a lot of sense. I spoke to a producer recently and there are pushing the birds to be laying medium eggs as soon as possible. But I would happily take all the small eggs from him.” Up until recently he was able to get the eggs he needed, but now price and availability are causing the business significant problems.

Free range
With a move toward supermarkets only selling free range eggs and a potential ban on colony cages – the cooked egg market has been working with these changes too.

“With a reduction of two million hens in colony cages, that means two million less eggs per day we’ve lost from that system. It’s not just table eggs, eggs go into hundreds of products and I’m talking to my customers and saying that they need to prepare. Many have already changed to free range eggs.”

A few years ago, Pankaj was buying 60% from colony and 40% from free range but now it’s the other way around. “My customers are switching over all the time, and they are having to accept that prices will be higher. For example, it means an extra 2-5 pence per egg sandwich to the consumer. They also have to consider that yolk colour is likely to be more variable which can be an issue for some products.”

Innovation
“I’ve built my business on innovation; I believe you always have to be moving forward and I’m proud of what my sons and I have achieved. Ten years ago, we were producing a retail pack of two boiled eggs, and they are still sold in convenience stores. Obviously, others follow and there are other brands on the market.”

In 2019, Just Egg won the BFREPA Breakthrough of the year and the National Egg & Poultry awards Food Innovation of the year, for their ready to eat poached eggs

In 2019 they won the BFREPA Breakthrough of the year and the National Egg & Poultry awards Food Innovation of the year, for their ready to eat poached eggs. They have just built a new factory dedicated to the production of poached eggs. Pankaj devised the manufacturing process, and his son designed the bespoke machinery within it. “When it comes online it few weeks it will be the first purpose-built factory for poached eggs – there isn’t another one like it in the world – you can’t buy our kit.” There are other people producing poached eggs but as there is no set equipment, they all do it differently.

Previously poached eggs were supplied from France, but BREXIT has made import difficult, which gave us an opportunity. “Our product has a 14-day shelf life and are pasteurised in the manufacturing process. We’ve worked with Campden laboratories to make sure that we can offer the runny yolk that customers want and that is extremely safe. They are reheated in boiling water and ready to be eaten however you want.” Just eggs poached eggs are made exclusively with Lion Code UK free range eggs.

Poached eggs are difficult to cook at home, for a chef and certainly on a large scale. “People want to use poached eggs in lots of recipes, as they are healthy and nutritious. However, it’s a 50:50 success rate and time consuming to make.”

For restaurants they go into salads and other dishes – along with the trend in food to go ‘protein pots’. “These have a variety of ingredients like, pork, beans, and of cause a poached egg. Itsu have a range, along with their noodle pots, that are heated in the microwave and designed as a quick healthy lunch.” Pankaj also believes that poached eggs are a brilliant retail product. “It is my dream that people will be able to have a poached egg on toast ready in the time it takes them to make a coffee in the morning. Morrison’s started stocking them before the pandemic but found it difficult to know which area to put them into. There are great opportunities for this product in hospitality and retail alike, it just needs the right campaign, and retailers to visualise its potential market. We receive many calls from the public asking us where they can buy our poached eggs.”

Sustainability
Approximately 12 grams of every egg is the shell. “We manufacture 1.5 million eggs a week, which equates to 17.7 tons of eggshell waste that would otherwise be sent to landfill.

With help from the University of Leicester, we developed an innovative solution to recycle our eggshells. Eggshells are made almost entirely of calcium carbonate, a chemical compound with a hard-wearing, crystalline structure that can be used to replace chalk as plastic filler.” This is both economical and good for the environment, making use of a waste product. Pankaj added, “we are trying hard to find suitable longer-term user as alternative to mined calcium carbonate, but its proving difficult”.

Eggs for all
“The cheapest sandwiches you can buy are egg and egg mayonnaise sandwiches, as they are easy to make. There aren’t a lot of ingredients to include so this reduces labour costs – making them an affordable and nutritious option. Eggs don’t discriminate, you can buy them whatever your income – this is very important in many countries.” Whilst Pankaj doesn’t have an issue with people who choose to be vegan, he is sceptical about egg substitutes. “They will never have the same nutritional value as an egg – I don’t believe that you should interfere with a natural product like eggs.”

“I tell my employees that the real customer is actually eating the sandwich! If they like it, they’ll buy it again and the manufactures will buy from us again. For this reason, safety and quality is paramount. You don’t know who will be eating the product they could be very old or very young.” This is the reason he doesn’t compromise on the eggs he buys, they need to be class A, having been checked for cracks and inclusions. “You get out what you put in and that’s why I won’t cook seconds.”

If there are any producers or packers who are interested selling eggs into the cooked egg market Pankaj would be happy to hear from them on 07979 691559 or pankaj@justegg.co.uk.