Ranger Magazine

September 2021

Salmonella must be every producer’s biggest concern outside the normal stressful confines of feed and price fluctuations.

Surprisingly though, too many producers have no insurance cover. I cannot begin to tell you the horror stories passed down to me from members who tell of the near collapse of generational farming businesses due to a positive test.

August 2021

While packing centres and egg producers report staffing problems caused by the so-called ‘pingdemic’ forcing essential workers to self-isolate, the supply of eggs on shelves remains good.

There is an estimated shortfall of about 100,000 HGV drivers in the UK, which means a much smaller pool of drivers is available than before Brexit and the pandemic to transport eggs from producers to depots and retailers.

But there is no doubt we are in a problematic oversupply situation, having navigated our way through a difficult 16 months keeping up with supply. The opening up of the food sector has not led to any significant increase in demand.

July 2021

Inflation is already here and has been for a while.

While the narrative would have you believe that inflation unexpectedly jumped above the Bank of England’s target in May, as an egg producer we know there is nothing unexpected about this at all. We have been facing inflationary pressures for some time.

Packers are not knocking on the retailers’ doors with demands for more money for no justifiable reason. To knock on a retailer’s door with any requests for more cash takes nerve; delisting follows typically. Retailers have been encouraging new packers and then playing them off each other for years now.