Top Awards for Ayrshire Egg men (From Smallholder)

Top Awards for Ayrshire Egg men

12:54pm Thursday 1st December 2011 in Poultry

Two Ayrshire family egg producers from the same area have taken the top awards in the 2011 Scottish Egg Quality Competition.

The competition, sponsored by the Scottish Agricultural College (SAC) and feed compounders BOCM PAULS, has been running for 24 years and is aimed at 'encouraging the pursuit of excellence in egg quality, to provide benchmark standards of quality that are both realistic and achievable and to recognise the highest quality and consistency standards achieved by successful entrants'. There was a record 29 entries this year from all parts of Scotland.

There are two major awards ­ the Challenge Shield for producer-retailers and a new award, a quaich (cup) for producers introduced this year to reflect the changes in the egg industry.

Entries came from both conventional cage and free-range systems of egg production. The SAC carried out quality assessments on eight key parameters: shell colour, egg weight, yolk colour, albumen quality, shell thickness, freedom from meat and blood spots, external appearance and packaging.

Winners of the 'quaich' for egg producers were Jim and Anne Smillie of Corrie Mains Farm, Mauchline, Ayrshire, previous winners in the producer-retailer category. The Championship Challenge Shield for producer-retailers went to Billy and Irene Robb, Chalmerston Farm, Mauchline, Ayrshire. Both families are previous winners in the competition.

Eggs from Corrie Mains are sold direct to shops and delivered in the farm's own vans in Glasgow and throughout Ayrshire. They are also regularly available at farmers markets in the area and at the farmgate. The eggs are sold under the Corrie Mains Free Range Eggs brand.

There is a 50-year history of egg production at Chalmerston Farm, Mauchline.

When the Strathearn family retired they encouraged their daughter and son-in-law, Billy and Irene Robb, to continue the enterprise and to support the Quality Egg Awards competition which they have done and are past prizewinners.

Chalmerston Farm is a mixed beef and sheep enterprise and is run by the Robbs with the help of their son Alan who recently built a 16000 bird new build unit for Noble Foods. They continue to produce eggs in two smaller free range units to supply the retail outlets which include shops, hotels and cafes and Billy feels that eggs play an important part in the overall farming enterprise.

Congratulating the winners, John Cessford, BOCM PAULS marketing manager said his company was a long-time supporter of the Scottish Egg Quality Awards and was fully committed to its objectives of helping achieve excellence and consistency in egg quality with the depth and breadth of the testing criteria, coupled with the independence of the SAC, made the scheme unique in the UK.