kitchen design ideas galway
hello, i'm eileen hall from cavanagh free range eggs. we produce, grade, pack and deliver all our own free range eggs on our farm. we have a totally integrated system, farm to fork. for the original farming business, we were just on an exclusive contract, so we supplied a packer, and all we had to do was collect the eggs on the farm, mind the hens, and put the eggs on the trolley. and then the packer would have come twice a week to collect the eggs from us. it was a completely different ball game when we diversified. our original focus was just producing eggs, but we seen a gap in the market,
to diversify into a quality, artisan, free range egg, and if people are looking for provenance. so we seen the gap in the market, and that made us go that way. the main benefits we see is that we have control of the whole thing right through, we have control of where we buy our feed, our birds. the other benefits is then we see the product on the shelves, right through the whole way. the great thing about it is, too, to listen to all the feedback from our customers and consumers, of the quality and the taste of the egg. well, the main thing was getting the thing set up and running, it was all about what way we were going to go about it, getting a grader,
and getting staff and everything up to legislation, and all our staff trained, with all the control within food hygiene, and packaging and labelling. that was our major concerns. well, first we contacted the department of agriculture, and then the egg inspectorate came out, and he gave us all the information that we needed, to get started to comply with the law. the department of agriculture put us in touch with cafre. we did the farm diversification programme, and they would have give advice on hmrc, ict, you know, selling skills, marketing - all that kind of stuff.
it was a 12 week course, and we found that invaluable. starting off, we found it very difficult to be taken seriously, and they thought it was just another start-up business that's here today, gone tomorrow. but we just had to keep focused, keep our head down, and just get on with it. we knew we had a good product, and we just had to prove it. i did the leadership management programme in queen's university, through invest northern ireland. and that was really invaluable too. it gave me confidence to go out and break into the market, and knock on doors, talk to buyers and eventually,
we could see that we were making progress. further on down the line, we would have got help from the likes of food ni, invest northern ireland, and we did the design development programme through them. the biggest challenge was, it was like moving from bricklayer to architect. it was a completely different ball game, when you are used to just farming, and doing that sort of thing. it was about getting your product to market, and that was a completely different ball game altogether. i think we would have done more research, to see what we were going into. because, there has been, we have come across many pitfalls as we've went along, but it was a matter of learning as you go along.
the three tips i would give for anyone who is planning to diversify their farm business, would be to seek advice, number one, from either your local council, invest northern ireland, in fact, nibusinessinfo.co.uk has a wealth of knowledge on it, so that would be my first tip. secondly, your legalities, to make sure of what you need for your packaging, for your farm for producing. and third, to work out your costings. very, very important because there's a lot of hidden costs that you don't think of. well, we're exploring new markets, and we're hoping to expand,
so, onwards and upwards.