Farmer Case Studies

Pure Foods Eggs: Invest in your customers by investing in traceability 

Traceability is an important food safety system for Tasmania's egg producer, Pure Foods Eggs, which distributes over 4 million dozen eggs annually.

For over 30 years, Pure Foods has been an integral part of Tasmania's food industry with a diversified portfolio of businesses spanning egg production, egg grading, grainmilling and egg distribution.

To guarantee more Tasmanians wake up to Pure Food Eggs than any other brand, they supply to retailers including Coles, Woolworths and IGA as well as to the wholesale market that supply restaurants and hotels.

Pure Foods Eggs takes pride in producing the highest quality eggs while maintaining the well-being of hens.

Pure Foods Eggs CEO, Kate Daley, believes egg traceability is an important mechanism to keep customers safe and protect the reputation of the business and the broader egg industry if eggs need to be recalled.

"Pure Foods Eggs has never had a product recall due to our focus on healthy hens and good food safety practices. Our history doesn't mean that something can't go wrong in the future. We must maintain a state of readiness to trace and recall our products if needed to minimise potential harm to consumers," Ms Daley said.

"The key to a successful traceability system is understanding what information and processes are needed to support a fast and efficient egg recall. Once you know what is required, you can develop and implement your traceability system.

"Identifying the information needed for a recall and putting the systems and processes in place is the hardest part of traceability. However, heaps of information and resources are available from Australian Eggs to assist egg producers with this. Once you have done the upfront work, the rest becomes part of the daily routine."

Pure Foods Eggs' traceability system comprises a recall plan, processes that capture data and information at critical points during the egg collection, grading, packaging and distribution processes.

Pure Foods Eggs’ systems enable the identification of the point of origin of eggs and track the movement of eggs through to delivery to our customers. The traceability system includes staff training and system testing via mock recalls. 

"There are some simple things that we do to assist our ability to trace eggs such as uniform flocks in sheds, collecting eggs from one shed at a time, clearly labelling collected eggs with the shed and flock details including the collection date, keeping records of the number of eggs collected and by whom. When we pack eggs, that pack's eggs are all from the same flock and were collected on the same day," Ms Daley said.

"Data is gathered from paper forms and translated into systems used to date label eggs. Most of our manual paperwork is filed so it can be looked up quickly in case of a recall.

"If there is an issue with our eggs, once a barcode or stamp number is provided, we can run a full traceback to the shed the egg was laid in, identify on what day it was laid, what lane it was packed on, and what day it was sold.

"Having excellent food safety processes leads to customer loyalty and growth because these systems lead to consistency and quality of products going out to customers.

"A sound traceability system not only gives egg farmers the ability to recall eggs, but it also improves the farmer's ability to pinpoint the source of an issue and take appropriate action.”

"Invest in your customers by investing in traceability."

Traceability is you protection policy, says LT's Eggs 

LT’s Eggs is a nationally recognised commercial egg farm, with an unwavering commitment to the quality and safety of its eggs for over 50 years.

To maintain this quality and taste, LT’s must have a robust traceability system in place. 

That's according to Danyel Cucinotta, Business Development Manager at LT’s Eggs, a third-generation egg farmer with vast practical experience spanning over 10 years.

Established in 1970, LT’s has grown from a small egg farm of 1,500 birds to a sophisticated farm with 30 employees and over 30,000 birds within two sheds.

LT’s was a vision of a young migrant couple looking to raise their family and live the Australian country life. 

"My love of farming began when I was young, my childhood was filled with memories on the farm. The whole family had a role to play, on the weekends I would help my parents look after the chickens," said Ms Cucinotta. 

Over three generations the business has continued to grow. Coupled with hard work and commitment, LT’s built a successful egg farm in addition to diversifying into a food destination.

"Now, we have a fantastic fresh deli department and café which showcases the humble egg. We wanted to create a space for people to relax and eat great food. 

"Throughout it all, we have always invested in our traceability systems to ensure peace of mind, meaning any safety or quality issues can be identified and rectified swiftly."

Initially, the LT’s Eggs traceability process was simple. Employees would use a pen and paper to record essential data, to provide evidence of an egg's path through the farm.

LT’s trained staff members monitor the hens for a number of key indicators in addition to egg data such as flocks, best before dates and temperature of storage. The data was then logged twice daily in a central system, guaranteeing the information was accessible and recent. 

"Although this approach had limitations, it was efficient for when we only had a small operation as it was easy to adopt and cost-effective," said Ms Cucinotta. 

From the shed, the eggs would be graded where they are weighed, stamped with an identification code and the best before date, packed and placed on pallet with a handwritten ticket which traces the eggs back to a flock and shed, and await transportation to our customers.

At the end of 2021, LT’s decided to invest in a technology-assisted traceability system. They implemented a data collection app to allow traceability records to be made on the go and provide trends, benchmarking and give use to the data being collected.

The new software allows them to expand the pool of data collection, now monitoring for not only overall hen health but food safety indicators, inputs and efficiency of the farm.

LT’s traceability records are now captured in the same way across the business using an iPhone or iPad and quickly backed up on the cloud.

In addition to the new system, LT’s will continue to manually track the data for the next two years to create benchmarking and validate the data they input. 

"Our traceability system makes sure we’re always working to the best of our ability, when problems arise, we can immediately execute a step-by-step procedure to investigate.

“If there is a food safety concern, we are able to make a quick search through our app and assess the problem, match codes and compare our data to the problem at hand," said Ms Cucinotta

"Moving forward, traceability will continue to be a major part of our success.  According to Ms Cucinotta, there is no one size fits all approach to traceability.  "Start with the basics,” she said.

"Pen and paper served us well for many years, for many egg farmers it’s all you need to protect your assets, brand and industry." 
“But as you grow, it’s critical to explore how technology can support your traceability journey.

Traceability is your insurance policy, says Josh's Rainbow Eggs

Josh’s Rainbow Eggs is one of Victoria’s most well known and loved egg brands. The company was founded by Josh Murray at just nine years old with a flock of 40 hens. Fast forward twelve years later, the free range egg producer has 10 sheds, tens of thousands of hens and sells to over 80 Coles and Woolworths stores in Melbourne and throughout Victoria.

Dr Tamsyn Murray is Josh’s mum and today is the CEO of Josh’s Rainbow Eggs. According to Tamsyn, one of the key elements to the success of the business is trust – and that trust has been powered, in part, by traceability.

“Traceability is about tracking the path of an egg through your business,” said Tamsyn.

“It comes down to each individual egg, I need to know exactly where each egg cracked and eaten came from.

“I want to know what flock and in which shed it was laid, and I need to know on what date. I want to know who collected it and who candled it and I want to know where it travelled before it reached its final destination.

“Designing and maintaining a traceability system is the only way we can do that.”

In the egg business you need to be sure of at least two things – that your eggs are safe and that they are good quality. According to Tamsyn, it’s the role of traceability to give you that peace of mind in the safety and quality of your eggs.

“Traceability is my insurance policy for egg quality and biosecurity.

“When things go wrong we can turn to our traceability procedures to immediately locate the problem, understand what caused the issues and make rapid amends.

Traceability at Josh’s Rainbow Eggs exists in three key components. The first step takes place at the shed, where the eggs are laid.

Each worker has access to a mobile app, and when eggs are collected they are digitally recorded along with details of the flock, date and time.

The next step takes place on the grading floor. Eggs received from the sheds are sorted, and forms are filled out and logged which can be reconciled against the data recorded in the app. As they are graded each individual egg is stamped and timecoded. The cartons are stamped with an identifier as well, to ensure that eggs can be traced even if the eggshells have been discarded.

The final step in traceability takes place when the eggs are distributed by the sales and merchandising team, to ensure that egg can be tracked all the way through to point of sale.

Tamsyn says there is nothing complicated about her traceability system and that is by design.

“If traceability is complex, hard or time-consuming it won’t work.”

“It must be simple at the data entry step. If it’s difficult it might not be done correctly and there is no wiggle room to onboard new staff slowly. It must be able to be achievable for anyone at anytime,” she said.

“Simplicity must also exist at the data retrieval side, there’s no use having data recorded but it living in messy, unorganised files and folders. Recalls need to happen quick.”

Egg producers looking to build a simple traceability system should look no further than simple technology-assisted data collection apps like EggTrace, a tool developed by Australian Eggs to support industry traceability. This tool will soon be made available to the entire egg industry and all egg producers, especially those who aren’t currently implementing traceability are encouraged to use it.

Because for Tamsyn, traceability helps her sleep at night. As an egg producer she has a responsibility to deliver good quality safe eggs and with traceability she knows that’s exactly what Josh’s Rainbow Eggs does.

Farmer case study -Trust in traceability, says Days Eggs

Days Eggs is South Australia’s largest egg producers and one of the largest producers in the country with around 450,000 eggs laid per day. It’s a fully integrated operation with the business grading its own free range and caged eggs.

Days Eggs prides itself on innovation, quality and its relentless pursuit of hen welfare but underpinning the business is a dedication to the implementation of robust traceability procedures which help protect its customers, hens, staff and the business.

According to Dion Andary, managing director of Days Eggs, traceability is one of the most critical business processes.

“Without traceability we are operating blind,” he said.

“Traceability provides full transparency. It provides me and my team with the peace of mind that any health or quality issues with any of our eggs or hens can be rectified immediately, greatly reducing the potential impact on the business.

“Not only that but it teaches us things about our business, helps us plan for the future and investigate where our shortcomings may lie so we can constantly improve.

The traceability program at Days Eggs was developed by Anne Andary, Days Eggs Sales and Technical Manager in 1997 and has been continuously improved since that time. The system is now managed by Jessica Spencer, poultry welfare manager. Jessica says that while it might appear daunting to start a traceability system from scratch, its just about collecting and recording simple data.

“Our traceability is one of the most robust in the business but at the end of the day it’s really simple,” she said.

“It’s just about counting how many eggs are laid each day by each production method, recording the number and being able to trace those eggs back to specific sheds.Our traceability is holistic and can be followed from individual sheds on any of our farms all the way through to our customers and vice versa using documents which we maintain on file in conjunction with farm and shed assigned codes. 

Days Eggs use a pre-printed sheet system in order to help their staff accurately record the eggs which are laid, graded and sent off for sale.

Every morning staff fill out the printed sheets, which are colour coded to match production methods, with the number of eggs that are graded from each shed, each day. These sheets are then matched against the master balance sheet and at the end of the week all data is reviewed and verified by several people to ensure all the data is correct.

The business also records data at receivables, where the temperature of inbound trucks and the quality of eggs is checked as well as at despatch where outgoing pallets are matched with specific trucks.

Similarly, our dispatch and delivery dockets to customers from our sales department and warehouse stock counts are used to balance eggs graded back to specific codes and farms and can readily be identified for accurate traceability of product to stores.  

To store all this data, Days Eggs maintains a simple document management service to ensure copies of all data is retained.

With daily records, retained Days Eggs are in a very strong position if there are any issues which may have potentially arisen in their farms.

“Our traceability review process is incredibly thorough, and the entire team knows exactly what to do,” Jessica says. It is regularly tested and verified during 3rd party audits

“If there is a human health related, safety or quality issue suspected, the team at Days Eggs are able to execute a straightforward step-by-step procedure to immediately investigate the issue.

If the business can be provided with a barcode or stamp number of an egg of concern, the team is able to run a full traceback to the shed the egg was laid in, and identify on what day it was laid, the lane it was packed on and what day it was then sold. The process takes less than two hours.

Dion Andary says that having this capability is a huge boon for the business.

“From a business management perspective having these processes in place is an absolute no-brainer,” he said.

“The ability to trace eggs back in 90 minutes means that if a recall were required, we can do it quickly and we don’t need to recall anything that doesn’t require it, saving us and our customers, time and money and giving us peace of mind.

But Dion said outside of the easy to measure financial benefits, the most important benefit of traceability is trust.

“The importance of being able to trace an egg back to the date of lay, date of sale and a specific shed cannot be understated because it builds trust.”

“Customers can trust that we have the processes in place to provide safe eggs, our staff can trust us that we have the mechanisms in place to support them in any issues and we can trust our staff that correct processes are followed.

“It puts the business in an enviable position.”

Traceability is essential to egg farmers, says Manning Valley Eggs

Since 1989 Manning Valley Eggs has grown from a small flock of twelve birds to several free range farms with 2,500 hens per hectare in Manning Valley and regional NSW.

Manning Valley Eggs has developed its free range egg farming methods for over 30 years, working hard towards creating sustainable farming practices. Underpinning the business is the necessary traceability procedure ensuring transparency and efficiency.

Peter Matuszny, the owner of Manning Valley Eggs, believes traceability is invaluable to an egg farmer’s business model. 

“Essentially, traceability allows us to isolate and fix problems immediately and efficiently.

“Whether it be a simple egg quality or issue or something more serious like a health and safety issue, we have the protocols in place to reduce and mitigate the potential impact by identifying exactly where and when an egg was laid,” he said.

With several farms, being able to identify where eggs are coming from is critical.

“We can reduce losses for our business and minimise impacts to our customers.”

“Traceability also provides a sense of order and control. If issues arise, there is no need to panic for myself or my staff, we simply follow our structured protocol”

The Manning Valley Eggs traceability process is a series of data collection and record-keeping steps to provide evidence of the path of an egg through the supply chain. Traceability data is logged into a central system daily, ensuring information is up to date and immediately accessible.

Every staff member follows the data capture procedure which is checked and balanced regularly.

The traceability procedure is when the eggs are stamped, coded in the carton linking back to the grading floor, placed on a machine with printed information on the specific farm and actions code, pallet tagged, and await transportation to supermarkets.

This simple data collection ensures Manning Valley Eggs is prepared to execute a straightforward step-by-step procedure to investigate any problem immediately. When provided with a problematic barcode of stamp number, Manning Valley eggs has the process in place to almost immediately identify not only the specific production area of concern but time and date of lay – further narrowing down areas of concern.

This means that the required action plan can be focused only on these areas of concern, resources can be utilised more effectively with less wasted human resources enabling the business to get back to full-utilisation quicker.

According to Peter, traceability is one of its most important business management processes.

“The return on investment for establishing a traceability system is clear. Recording regular data is easy and when inevitable issues arise, we are thankful we have it. We consider it one of our most important insurance policies.

“But more than the return on investment, traceability provides is with the peace of mind that we are prepared for anything. That is priceless.”