OUR HISTORY

In the mid 60’s, Carl and Peter hatched a plan

The twin brothers decided to buy a small derelict farmhouse and a piece of land at Swineshead, and soon set about building their first henhouse. The egg industry was in its infancy at the time, with eggs considered a luxury protein packed food item, but the brothers saw the potential for building a future-ready egg business.

It is fair to say the farm was a very different place back then – the chickens had to share with a number of other tenants including a dozen cows, two horses, twenty or-so sheep, two dogs and a goat (named Billy!)

After much hard work and determination, Bird Bros eggs began to move up the pecking order across the local counties. Their secret recipe for success? Realising that the happier the birds, the tastier the eggs. And that became the founding principle for their rapidly growing business.

Fast forward 50 years and Bird Bros are now supplying 4 million beautiful fresh eggs each week across the land, through smaller independent shops, national retailers and food service providers, cafes and restaurants.

Sons Matthew and Stuart have come aboard along the way and with a loyal and dedicated team are growing and evolving the business for the future.

 

Things can change. And so do we

We’ve been the pre-eminent egg producer and supplier in the East Anglian region for over 50 years. Amongst many reasons for our continuing success is our willingness to adapt to business and market changes. We’re always alert to the changing demands of our customers, ready to expand our free range varieties if necessary, and to offer organic and other specialty eggs.

Since the turn of the century, the company has:

  • Invested over £25 million, including a £6 million project in 2011 to remove the traditional old style ‘battery cages’ and install new enriched colony units for the hens – ensuring our welfare standards stay among the highest in the world for hens kept in intensive systems.
  • Introduced advanced machinery including robotics & bespoke IT systems.
  • Invested £5 million building a completely new industry leading Packing & Distribution HQ.
  • Installed solar units totaling over 800KW’s to generate clean energy and save electricity.
  • Made big energy reductions by installing an extensive PIR lighting system, operated automatically by motion detection. Highly efficient insulation was built in too, all to help reduce energy waste.
  • Continuously upgrading our distribution fleet of temperature controlled, low emissions vehicles.
  • Opened a flagship free range egg farm in Cambridgeshire, supplying our main Packing Centre, from where we’ve recently launched Fairview Farms Gloriously Golden – our premium free range egg brand.
  • We’re always planning on more clean energy generation, automation, robotics and smarter IT systems… so keep an eye on our news tab for further developments!