SEPRA Weekly Market Report
EGGSTRAORDINARY success once again
This
time Glenrath Farms are awarded Farm Business of the Year 2004. This award was
sponsored by Genus
and the picture shows John and Cathy Campbell receiving this prestigious award
from John Beckett, ex-Genus chairman. The awards were presented at the House of
Lords on 3rd November. In the presentation we were told that John bought
Glenrath in 1961 and is one of only three egg suppliers to ASDA and one of just
two to Tesco and is one of the top three egg producing firms in the UK.
Glenrath is said to have invested £17m since 2000 in state-of-the-art facilities and employs 180 people. I am told Glenrath is the biggest employer in Peebleshire, and with 4,000 hectares, sheep and beef are a sideline. Recently one ram sold for £49,000. Some sideline.
With his family very much involved in the company John believes that the greatest asset a business has is its people. He gave as an example Sandra, who joined him 20 years ago as the office junior, is now the marketing manager and also first non-family board member.
What a success story and one which the Campbells will be justly proud of. CONGRATULATIONS GLENRATH.
Scots scientists at Dundee University have shed light on why our muscles waste away as we get older. They hope that the discovery, which was reported on in the Daily Express, will enable doctors to turn back the clock, helping people maintain a longer active life.
When people eat protein-rich foods such as eggs (also meat fish and chicken) it normally triggers the body to renew muscle tissue. The University scientists found that older people cannot turn the protein they eat into muscle as effectively. They say “ There is a good case for eating high protein foods after exercise and not waiting till a normal eating mealtime. “ So it’s an egg as soon as the garden is tidied and the yard swept, two eggs on a steak after a day at the shops, and perhaps a raw egg and a sherry at the bed-side? Could we be using this research finding as a boost to eggs sales? Just think after two or three weeks the Mrs could take a second notion to the ‘ young’ man in her house ?
Reader’s Digest
Do any of you take the Reader’s Digest? Usually it’s found in dentists’ or doctors’ waiting rooms. I have a copy of the November issue and the front outer cover page asks the question " How safe is your food ? New bugs. New cover-ups. The accompanying picture is a fridge with a CAUTION on the door.
A David Moller who lists some terrible examples of food poisoning writes the article inside. He comments on the FSA report of cases which claim that illnesses are up by 25% since 2000. He tells of a sandwich bar in Liverpool which was fined because the owner hadn’t checked that the eggs were pasteurised (and therefore salmonella free).
In his advice on how to protect yourself at home he claims that salmonella is usually transmitted by eggs. But Prof Pennington has claimed that there have been no cases of salmonella food poisoning connected to eggs in Scotland for the past 4 years. Also in the Food Standard Agency salmonella survey which gave its results earlier this year they could find no traces of Salmonella on the shell or IN the egg itself on any of the eggs tested in Scotland!
Egg recipes
I have in the past asked for egg recipes and just lately I enquired if any of you had any unusual ideas for the ‘other’ uses for eggs?
It may surprise you to know that I received only one response to my plea for
egg recipes, and not one for the unusual use for eggs.
Am I wasting my time ?
Your web site attracts quite a few enquiries each month. I am unable to tell you
who actually enquires but in the month of August you had over 22,000 ’ hits’,
while in September it went down to 13,000.
So far this month, November, your site has averaged, per day, 800 hits, and for
the first time the highest percentage of hits have been for members addresses,
but also some have asked about Flubenvet. I believe over this year as a whole
that the highest number of enquiries have been for recipes ! Yet we are told no
one bakes now. Come on please help your self to some extra sales. Lets have some
recipes using lots of eggs, and the simpler the better.
Battery cages
Tom Howie who is across in New Zealand just now visiting his son, may well be caught up in an anti-battery cage demo tomorrow. The following report gives news of action to take place tomorrow. Campaign Against Factory Farming (CAFF) will take to the highway in an effort to ban battery hen farming this Saturday from midday to 2pm. Spokesperson for CAFF, Debra Ashton, says the group will keep pressure on Wellington Egg Company battery hen farmers Sandi and Trevor Chin by demonstrating outside their premises on Highway 58 at Judgeford for the second time in two months.
“We want to send a message to all battery egg producers that we won’t go away until they stop this cruel and inhumane way of farming. There is just no excuse for it.” Hens from this farm have been seen in extremely bad condition. Often featherless, their bare bodies and feet rubbed raw from the wire cages. They are sometimes barely able to walk, through lack of exercise, Ms Ashton said.
“Most New Zealanders already agree that this is no life for a hen because they can’t express their normal patterns of behaviour. “The fact is that people haven’t realised what goes on inside the sheds of this farm that they drive by every day. We are asking for the farmers to let us all have a look. Surely if they had nothing to hide, they would.
” Minister of Agriculture Jim Sutton is soon expected to announce new
recommendations on the code of welfare for layer hens. His office has already
turned down two requests for CAFF Science Advisor Dr. Michael Morris to meet
with him to present scientific evidence against battery hen farming, yet he met
with the Poultry Industry Association earlier this year.
“It is obvious he is listening to a small number of farmers and not the majority
of New Zealanders that CAFF represents.”
It all sounds very similar to what we had in UK sometime ago ?
Bob Hunter
On his retiral SEPRA gave Bob a suitable retiral card and I received a thank
you letter from Bob this week.
In thanking us for the card, he also wished to thank all those members who were
so courteous to him over the many years when he visited as their egg inspector.
He has so many odd-jobs since his retiral that he has been unable to spend much
time on the golf course.
Dennis Surgenor