Detchant Farm secures Tesco egg contract

The business at the Jackson family farm, Detchant, Belford, Northumberland currently supplies to a range of customers including many hotels and restaurants throughout the North East.

As a local supplier to Tesco over the next 12 months, Sunny Hill hopes to sell more than 50,000 dozen eggs into the regional stores.

Their hens nest in state-of-the-art sheds and are free to roam all day in fields overlooking Holy Island. The 57,000 chickens produce more than 17 million eggs each year.

Christine and Catherine use traditional rearing methods to produce better tasting eggs, one of the main reasons Sunny Hill's customers cite for buying them. Christine explains: "Working with Tesco means we are now able to supply our eggs to a greater number of people throughout the North East. In addition it ensures that we can sustain 15 local jobs."

Caroline Bartrop of Tesco says of the contract: "In response to customer demand, Tesco has continued to expand its range of local produce. Sunny Hill Eggs are now available in six North East stores through Tesco North's Local Sourcing Initiative."

Sunny Hill Eggs are now available from Jesmond, Hexham, Newcastle, North Shields, South Shields and Newton Aycliffe branches of Tesco.

The eggs are also stocked in greengrocers, delicatessens and farm shops across the region, as well as selected branches of Asda and Morrisons. They also supply to many of the region's schools and other educational establishments.

Sunny Hill Free Range Eggs was born out of the foot-and-mouth outbreak of 2001.
While Detchant Farm now supports beef cattle, seven years ago it was purely arable and so escaped the devastation wreaked on other farmers.

But as the agricultural industry struggled to get back on its feet in the wake of foot-and-mouth, a Defra adviser suggested to the Jacksons that free range eggs could be their saving grace.