Farmers Weekly Awards 2020: Poultry Farmer of the Year

Jim and Anne Smillie, Corrie Mains Free Range, Mauchline, East Ayrshire

The Smillie family farm, perched high above the Ayrshire town of Mauchline, is quite distinct from many modern free-range egg holdings.

There are 21,000 birds on the farm, split into small multi-age flocks – a far cry from the more typical shed housing 16,000 or 32,000 birds that is more common across the free-range sector today.

On the face of it, they are relatively small players in a market dominated by big businesses relying on scale to make a profit from narrow margins.

What makes them winners of Poultry Farmer of the Year is how they have – over decades – built a well-rounded business that has a handle on both production and marketing, giving the family far better returns and control over their customer list.

The history

Looking back at the farm’s beginnings, it is perhaps easy to see how the Smillies ended up where they are.

Jim’s parents had a small dairy farm on the edge of East Kilbride and a small milk round supplying residents of the town.

Jim and Anne wanted to strike out on their own, and in 1996 found a smallholding on the edge of Mauchline and decided to focus on egg production.

Rather than seeking to supply an egg packer, the pair developed an egg round and began selling to small shops, restaurants and residents in the local area.

Things took off when they began selling at farmers markets, which exploded in popularity around the turn of the millennium.

Anne says: “We realised at the time that 8% of our total production was giving us 40% of our income.”

The markets had a secondary benefit ­– they exposed the business to more customers across Ayrshire, further developing the egg round.

In 2008 the family sold their smallholding and moved to their current home, a bigger farm with room for bird numbers and packing capacity to expand further.

Today the farm packs the eggs of 25,000 birds, split into seven flocks (one of which is on a separate farm), all on flat-deck systems.

Jim’s care for the birds is evident. The site is multi-age, making health challenges more common, but strict biosecurity and close attention to detail keep production in good order.

Flocks are regularly healthy enough to continue producing far beyond the more typical 74 weeks.

And Anne tends to manage customer relations. “We believe our biggest achievements lie in our steady growth of production in alignment with our customer demand,” she says.

“We never create a surplus and are quick to react to an oversupply.”

Outreach

Not content with developing a successful, profitable, farm business, for 16 years the family have worked with local schools to teach children about farming and the benefits of eating eggs.

It began with a supply contract to local schools that required a level of engagement, but has grown beyond that.

Jim will take kids with challenging backgrounds on farm tours, and Anne visits schools and cooks egg dishes with pupils.

“We live in a quite deprived area,” says Anne. “Kids are on free school meals, and their free school meal might be the only food they get that day.”

They say showing children how the farm operates is creating the egg farmers of the future, while cooking with eggs helps create their future customers – a win-win.

A word from our independent judge

“Corrie Mains Free Range is a business built on a passion for keeping free-range birds and felt like an integral part of its community. Jim and Anne go above and beyond and have developed a profitable enterprise with bird welfare at its heart.”

Aimee Mahony, chief poultry adviser, NFU