Poultry Awards Finalists – Lorna and Nick Chippindale

Lorna and Nick Chippindale – Chippindale Foods
Kingsley Farm, Harrogate

Attempting to break the world record for the biggest egg and spoon race would have been a success if torrential rain hadn’t flooded out Harrogate’s Oatlands Stray in July. 

Backed by Lorna and Nick Chippindale, all of the eggs for the race were provided by their company with the slogan ‘Please don’t drop me!’ printed on each shell.  But don’t be fooled into thinking this wacky event is a one-off.

Add to it the Great Yorkshire Egg Cup where school children build towers and bridges out of egg boxes; the winner this year being a model of Humber Bridge in Hull.  And Pulp Fiction – no, it doesn’t involve dressing up as Uma Thurman and John Travolta – but instead teaches children about recycling egg boxes. 

So where did it all start?  The Chippindale family has a long history in the egg sector.  Great Grandfather Chippindale started at all in the 1930s by marketing and hatching chicks.  Fast forward 77 years and this respected family figure still makes regular visits to the new £0.5m automated packing station to view the machine which he thinks is “bloody marvellous”.

Lorna and Nick run the company with 15 contract producers on board producing, packing, marketing, selling and distributing eggs. With 90% of the business going to supermarkets – Morrisons and Booths – and the remainder off to food service businesses and wholesale distributors, many could see this business model as risky – but not Nick.

“90% of our business goes to supermarkets.  It’s a big chunk.  But that’s what we’re geared up for.  It’s a risk but we are in charge of our sales so it’s a different relationship.  Certainly in free-range over 80% of free-range eggs go to retail. 

What is there after retail?  Food service and wholesale – we’re into that.  Then after that what is there?” he comments.

With its three own brands – Yorkshire Free Range, Brontebrowns Organic and Cornfed – alongside packing Morrisons own branded fresh, free-range and organic eggs, Chippindale Foods packs 2m eggs every week.  This equates to roughly 1% of total UK sales.  Currently they supply all Yorkshire Morrisons stores and to depots in Scotland and Central England, as well as Booth stores in Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria. 

“We’ve developed over the last 10-15 years to be very much a packer,” explains Lorna.  “But in the last five years we’ve become more specialised in developing free-range and organic brands and our farmer’s businesses.” 

With a 40,000 cage unit on the current packing site, future plans are to completely stop production and leave this side of the business to their contractors. 

“I’m very capable of doing lots of jobs across the plethora.  I can run a grader, I can look after chickens.  But I’ll try and step away from that and get other people to do that day-to-day,” says Nick.  “A big part of my job is balancing supply and demand.  I like to think I’ve got a feel for what is coming around the corner.”

Along with its three brands – described by the couple as “products with integrity” – the Chippindales also launched the wheresyoursfrom.com website in July 2005.  Wheresyoursfrom.com provides consumers with photographs and information about the farm where their eggs were laid.  By typing in the egg code, the products have complete traceability and transparency.

“Our farmers embrace the website because it brings them closer to the consumer.  It’s not only about placing new brands on the shelf but it’s about nurturing the existing ones.  And it’s been embraced by consumers, farmers and retailers alike,” says Lorna. 

With plans to double production over the next five years, backed by its producers in the northeast – coast to coast and 100miles either way, this Yorkshire packer is bursting out of the county’s seams.
 
And just if you’re wondering, the world record currently stands at 859 egg and spoon racers.