Nice Lidl earner joy for Shropshire egg firm

Oaklands Farm Eggs will provide Welsh eggs in for Lidl stores in Wales as part of plans to expand the business.

The 60-year-old family-run firm has its main production and packing site at Edstaston, near Wem, and its head office in Ellerdine, near Telford, but operates across the UK and is now one of Europe's top egg producers.

It employs nearly 100 people in Shropshire itself and produces 500 million eggs a year from its farms in the county, which already supply Lidl.

The new deal is to supply the supermarket chain with Welsh-produced eggs alongside the existing English line.

The growing Welsh retail side of the business is expected to put the business on sure footing, and follows the opening of new packing facility in Ruabon, between Oswestry and Wrexham, three years ago.

Today the business has a total turnover of £75 million, of which £18 million is a direct result of its Welsh operation.

It is also looking at expanding into Belgium, France, Germany and Holland, and has even had interest from the Far East.

Elwyn Griffiths, commercial director at the company, said: "We are a Welsh family and we wanted to establish a Welsh packing station to add value to what is a premium product and support Welsh producers.

"We already supply a number of retailers and our target is that every Welsh store should have premium Welsh eggs at a competitive price."

The company has also recently gone into partnership with existing business Lampeter Eggs in an agreement that will provide Oaklands with an important distribution hub.

"We are building the infrastructure to create a whole supply chain that delivers a premium Welsh product to the market place with low food miles," Mr Griffiths said.

In recent years Oaklands has invested £20 million in Shropshire, including forging links with Harper Adams University at Edgmond, near Newport, to give students hands-on experience of the poultry industry at its centre of excellence, based at the Wem site.