Smiling through the hard times at Farmlay

Robert Chapman is one of the best-known faces in both the Scottish and the UK egg producing scenes. Poultry World went to meet him.

Ten years ago, Robert Chapman, the man with a perpetual smile on his face, decided his layer farm, then supplying restaurants and corner stores, was going to grow to supply a major supermarket.

After a decade of hard work, constant expansion and investment, the Farmlay business has expanded fivefold and now supplies Morrisons for the whole of Scotland.

“We invested with the aim of getting one of the major multiples onboard and that’s what we’ve done,” said Mr Chapman. “Ten years ago, we were doing 1,500 to 2,000 cases a week, now we do 7,500 or 8,000 cases a week.”

Farmlay Eggs is divided 50:50 between colonies and free-range production, with 260,000 of its own birds on site at the Cockmuir packing station, a further 40,000 off site and 200,000 free-range birds with contract producers. The company also rears 300,000 pullets.

Feed is milled on site at the packing station, while the raw grain itself is sourced from Mr Chapman’s own farm as well as those of his neighbours.

“We have about 600 acres of cereals ourselves and we use all that. But we also buy a lot of cereals from local farmers. Quite a lot of the guys that we buy eggs from we also buy cereals from,” he said.

“It’s a big boost for the area and we try to source quality feed, because I think the quality of the egg is influenced by the quality of the feed you give them.

“We use it as a selling point that we mill our own feed and use local ingredients, because it’s all about food miles and carbon footprint.”

As well as being committed to supporting the local community in sourcing, Mr Chapman also employs many local people and heavily markets his products as Scottish.

“We decided we needed to focus on Scotland because we are a Scottish company supplying a quality product,” he said. “We are at a bit of a disadvantage being so far north, but disease status is very good up here, there’s not too much poultry around and the quality of staff is good.

“A majority of our staff are from the local area. We try and look after them and have a very small turnaround.”

Family affair

Despite it’s growth, Farmlay Eggs is still a local, family business, with residents of the villages around Fraserburgh still coming in to buy eggs straight from the packing station.

The Chapman family has been producing from the farm since just after the Second World War when Robert’s mother and father moved to the farm.

“They always kept poultry right from the word go – broilers and the like. The first commercial layer shed went up in 1963. So we’ve been in the game a long time. I left school when I was 15 and came straight home to work for the family business.”

Now Mr Chapman runs the businesses with his wife Ethel and son Iain. But it hasn’t been plain sailing for the Chapman family with a tragic accident claiming the life of daughter Jennifer, who had been keen to take over the poultry business.

“We lost Jennifer and that was a big blow. She was in the business as well and she was so keen to grow it. My son is more interested in the (arable) farming side, but Jennifer was a trained accountant and she loved this (poultry) side.

“These things kick you in the teeth a bit, but you’ve just got to pick yourself up and get on with it. It’s not easy. It’s the worst thing in the world to lose a child.”

With a couple of years of low prices for eggs and the record price of feed, the last few years haven’t been the easiest. But Mr Chapman says he still thinks it’s a cracking industry to work in – without any hint of a pun.

“You just have to keep investing and be efficient. You’ve got to be better than average. If you do that you’ll always survive,” he said.

“We’ve been in the job for a long time and we’ve seen it all before. A lot of the new entrants didn’t realise that being an unsupported sector you do stand or fall by how good the market is.”

With the market at a serious low, some have called it a day.

Winter hardships

Last season’s hard winter posed significant challenges for Mr Chapman and Farmlay, with both the amount and the type of snowfall damaging sheds and making it hard to move stock.

“We had a couple of buildings come down, collapsed in the snow. One of the buildings was only two-and-a-half years old, so that shows how heavy the snow was.

“It was weird in other ways because there was no wind and the snow just fell. Normally up here you get the wind too and it blows the snow off the roofs. Last year it just didn’t do that, it just fell and it became so deep it brought down a couple of sheds.

“It was quite scary because half of it came down in the morning. Then, while we were standing waiting for some guys to come and take the rest of the snow off, the other half collapsed like a pack of cards. If anyone had been inside, they never would have got out. It shows you the power of nature.”

Despite having their own snowplough and gritting machine, they still struggled on, day-in, day-out, moving up to 3ft of snow a day. But Mr Chapman is stoic about the winter slog. “It’s just one of the joys of being a farmer this far north,” he said.

Renewable energy

The first thing you notice about Farmlay Eggs is the giant wind turbine which looms over the packing station and has become one of the best investments on the farm.

“We’re pleased with the way it is performing, but this is one the windiest places in the UK. Sticking out into the North Sea we get wind from all directions,” said Mr Chapman. “It’s been over a £1m investment, but it’s performing well.”

On a windy day, the 800kW, 80m tall wind turbine can power the whole packing station, leading to a 50% reduction in the farm’s electricity bills.

Having a wind turbine has also proved a good marketing point, highlighting the company’s green credentials.

But wind isn’t the only renewable energy project at Farmlay. There are also plans to install a biomass burner, which will utilise the pallets from the packing station, as well as an anaerobic digester to consume poultry and livestock manure and generate heat and electricity.

“If you can utilise a product that’s a waste and is costing you money to dispose of, and you can can turn it into a positive, then that’s a lesson for us all,” said Mr Chapman.

In a nutshell

Farmlay Eggs is an independent, family company with a proud tradition of producing, packing and distributing fresh Scottish eggs.

From a foundation of just 1,000 birds in 1946, Farmlay Eggs is now run by husband and wife team Robert and Ethel Chapman along with their son Iain and has 35 employees. Approximately 2m eggs a week pass through the main packing centre in Strichen, Aberdeenshire.

The company has attained Grade A membership of the British Retail Consortium, and is a strong supporter of the BEIC Lion scheme and the RSPCA Freedom Food scheme.