Trays in the back room and nobody sure which are oldest
Every morning someone collects from the hen house, and later the eggs are checked and packed into boxes. How many there are depends on the season, the weather, the age of the flock and whether the hens have decided to lay somewhere else. The eggs then go in every direction: the shop shelf, the cafe kitchen, the veg boxes, the pub that takes a few trays a week, the honesty stall at the gate.
Stacks of trays build up in the back room. Nobody is sure which were packed on Monday and which on Wednesday. In winter, the pub's order takes eggs the shop needed. In spring, there are more than anyone can sell and trays sit too long.
Why egg supply is surprisingly hard to manage
Eggs look simple: a steady product with a steady demand. In practice supply swings with daylight, weather and flock age, while demand swings with baking seasons, Easter and the veg box schedule. And because own eggs are handled by the farm side and sold by the shop side, the numbers live in different heads.
- Daily collection numbers are not written down, or are on a board in the shed.
- Packing dates are not clear on stacked trays.
- The shop, cafe, boxes, trade and gate stall all take eggs with no allocation.
- Seasonal dips in laying are noticed only when the shelf is empty.
- Cracked and rejected eggs are not recorded.
The rules on grading, packing, dating and selling eggs depend on how and where you sell them, and are for you and your advisers to follow. We do not advise on them. We build the day-to-day records around whatever your process is.
What loose egg records cost
When eggs run short, the shop shelf is usually the one left empty, because trade and box orders are fixed. Customers who come for your own eggs find none. When there are too many, older trays get pushed to the back and may be sold later than you would like or thrown away. Without collection records, you cannot see a slow decline in laying until it becomes a big one, and you cannot judge whether the flock is paying its way.
The cafe often takes eggs without recording them too, which makes the shop's figures and the flock's figures both wrong.
The egg log we build
- A daily collection entry on a phone at the hen house or packing area: eggs collected, and later eggs packed, cracked or rejected, with the date.
- Packed trays and boxes given a simple packing date label, printed or written from the log, so the oldest stock is obvious.
- Standing allocations for each outlet: veg boxes by packing day, trade customers by standing order, cafe needs and a target for the shop shelf and gate stall.
- A daily view of eggs available against allocations for the next week, with a warning when a shortfall is coming so you can decide who gets what.
- Movements to the cafe and the gate stall recorded in a tap, so every outlet's use is counted.
- A weekly and seasonal view of laying, sales by outlet and waste, useful when planning replacement birds or deciding how many eggs to promise trade customers.
| Outlet | How eggs are allocated |
|---|---|
| Veg boxes | From box orders for each packing day |
| Trade customers | From standing orders |
| Cafe | Target per day, logged as used |
| Shop shelf | Target level, topped up oldest first |
| Gate stall or vending | Loaded and logged |
A normal week with the log
The morning collection goes into the phone before breakfast. Packed boxes carry their packing date. On Tuesday, the log shows that laying has dipped and next week's allocations will leave the shop shelf short. You decide to reduce the pub's order for a fortnight and tell them in advance rather than on the day.
In spring, when laying peaks, the log shows the surplus early, so the cafe puts an egg dish on the specials board and the glut offer goes to customers who asked to hear about it.
Over the year, you can see laying against the age of the flock and sales by outlet, which makes the next decision about replacing birds much easier.
Is this how your eggs move?
- Collection numbers are on a board in the shed, or nowhere.
- Nobody is sure which trays are oldest.
- The shop shelf is the one left empty when laying dips.
- The cafe takes eggs without recording them.
- You cannot say how laying has changed over the year.