Whanganui poultry farmer Ian Higgins said egg price rises are inevitable due to pressure on suppliers. Photo / NZME
Whanganui poultry farmer Ian Higgins said egg price rises are inevitable due to pressure on suppliers. Photo / NZME
Whanganui supermarkets have been well-stocked with eggs thanks to a local supplier at a time when the breakfast favourite has been in short supply in some parts of New Zealand.
Ian Higgins Poultry Farm Ltd had stepped up supplies when stocks were low in some Whanganui outlets before Christmas.
“Wesupply other parts of the country through our distribution company Wholesome NZ but we always make sure we look after our Whanganui customers,” said director Ian Higgins.
Gordon McIvor and his wife Josie purchased the Four Square Eastbrook in Moana St, Whanganui East in November and found themselves short of egg supplies before Christmas.
“The eggs were being trucked in from out of town and there was going to be a delay so I called Higgins,” McIvor said.
“They were great and we are now well stocked with fresh, locally-produced eggs.”
Higgins said poultry farmers had been “seriously under the pump” for the past three years due in part to the impacts of Covid-19, but he said there were two major factors facing the industry.
“One is the Government phasing out poultry cages, which are now banned, and the other is the high cost and short supply of building materials,” he said.
“I hate cages and I’m glad they’ve been banned but it has been very hard for smaller operators to become compliant when they have not been able to get building materials and meet the stringent resource consent requirements.”
New Four Square Eastbrook owner Gordon McIvor now has a good supply of eggs in store after running low before Christmas. Photo / Liz Wylie
Higgins is a third-generation poultry farmer and his son Dave is now the managing director of their business.
“My grandfather started the business in the late 1800s and there’s not much I don’t know about chickens,” said Higgins.
“I remember not so long ago there were around 30 commercial poultry farmers in this district and now there’s really only us.”
Rasmusen’s Poultry Farm, the other long-established Whanganui family business based in Westmere, merged its operations with Heyden Farms Limited and Henergy Cage-Free Limited under the holding company Better Eggs Limited in 2020.
Rasmusen’s could not be contacted for comment for this story.
Higgins said as a large operation with around 100,000 hens, the business spent more than $5 million over four years on aviary barns or free-range sheds. They phased out their last cages in 2017.
Egg Producers Federation executive director Michael Brooks told Radio New Zealand more than 75 per cent of chicken farmers have had to change their farming methods or their career because of the ban, which was signposted in 2012.
In 2012, 84 per cent of all the country’s eggs were from battery farms.
Brooks said another issue is the cost of chicken feed, which has increased since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - a major wheat producer.
About 65 per cent of the cost of egg production comes from the feed.
Higgins said the cost of feed would necessitate price increases.
“We have not been passing on our extra costs to the consumer for a long time but people will need to prepare for the price of eggs to increase in the new year.
“I really want to stress that we have not and will not be inflating prices. We haven’t raised our prices while we’re using our current feed supply but when we restock it will be very costly and we will need to pass that on.”
Higgins said he had enjoyed the switch to cage-free farming and was looking forward to the completion of a new packing shed at the farm.
“It has taken a lot longer than we had hoped due to shipping and supply hold-ups,” he said.
“We want to keep our Whanganui customers happy and continue to supply all our local outlets as well as keep the farm shop going but there has been a bit of pressure lately.”
Demand for free-range and barn eggs has increased with both New Zealand’s big supermarket chains supporting the change.
