Farmers grow despite cage ban

For many poultry famers the burden of converting to enriched cages has imposed considerable costs on their businesses, but a Cornish farmer has used this need to convert as an opportunity to expand.

Julie Hewitt, owner of Rosedown Eggs in St Wenn, has, with her husband David, invested £500,000 in building a 16,000-bird new enriched colony cage setup, as well as a new grading house to take all the eggs from the 30,000 birds on the farm.

Expansion is nothing new on the 16-acre site which has seen profits increase fivefold since the Hewitt’s started on the farm 11 years ago. Today the farm supplies retail outlets in Cornwall as well as restaurants, hotels, shops, delis, campsites and local food service provider, Eden Hospitalities.

“With the improvements being made in the business, including a new grading house, I am really excited about what the future holds for the farm and my family,” said Mrs Hewitt.

“We buy in new chicks at one day old, which saves money, and then rear them on ourselves. We take other local producer’s eggs to help fulfil a growing order book of customers, as well as selling less productive older hens on to local smallholdings.”

Rosedown Eggs accessed money from Barclays Business, the Regional Development Agencies(RDA) and the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE).