Birchgrove Eggs

Husband and wife team Tony and Gwen Burgess run their busy Birchgrove Eggs business in Trawsgoed, mid-Wales. It’s a small, free-range farm set in the rolling green hills not far from the famous seaside town of Aberystwyth.

With 3,000 hens of mixed breeds, one of the first things you notice on the farm is the peace and quiet. Not the frantic noise of battery hens scrabbling for space, but the stress-free environment of hens, happy to each lay an egg a day, from which Tony and Gwen maintain a 90 per cent daily output, sending 2,700 eggs daily to a network of local retailers, hotels and restaurants.

25 years ago we took over a 10,000 caged-bird unit, and turned it into the smaller free-range farm we have today.” says Gwen. “We’ve been Freedom Food registered for over six years and we’re really proud of our thriving farm and the quality of our hens and their eggs – giving them the highest standards of welfare is so important to that success.

After winning Wales the True Taste Food and Drink Awards and Poultry Farmer of the Year the sky Is really the limit for the Burgess’s. More recently the couple have launched their own range of whole egg mayonnaise to complement their range of products. The idea came from a project undertaken by Bangor University to calculate the farm’s carbon footprint. This helped Tony and Gwen to identify improvements including extra tree planting, changes to transport, energy use, better supplier chain efficiency and this sparked new business ideas. We can’t wait to see what they’ll do next!

Find out more by visiting Aberystwyth farmers’ market every fortnight or log onto www.birchgrove-eggs.co.uk.