Lauren Hunter
Welcome to another episode of Poultry Times, The Coop Scoop, where we are cracking open the latest in industry news. I’m Lauren Hunter, publisher for Poultry Times back again to host with my favorite editor, David Strickland.
David Strickland
Thank you very much. Glad to be here. It’s gonna be a great episode.
Lauren Hunter
Yes, David, I’m pretty excited about this week’s episode. It’s a little different than some of our other ones. We are spotlighting a farm that has been in the same family for four generations.
David Strickland
Wow, nice.
Lauren Hunter
Which is impressive in itself, but with the many challenges facing America’s farmers today, Braswell Family Farm story is just as much one of resiliency and perseverance as it is family
David Strickland
Sounds great, and you know, eggs are a much-needed commodity in the US these days, and it’s nice to hear from a family farm that’s getting the job done.
Lauren Hunter
Absolutely we are thrilled to have with us on today’s episode Trey Braswell, President and CEO of Braswell Family Farms, Trey, welcome to the show.
Trey Braswell
Hey y’all. Thank you so much for letting me join you here. I’m excited.
Lauren Hunter
Well, we are certainly excited to have you. So, let’s start out pretty basic. Tell us a little bit about Braswell Family Farms.
Trey Braswell
Sure. I’d love to. I mean today, Braswell Family Farms is a fourth-generation family owned and operated feed and egg business. We produce feed for our hens, our laying hens, our pullets, other companies laying hens and as well as swine and some breeder hens and so that’s a you know, our milling business is about half internal, half external, and then and then our egg businesses is really the, probably the largest part of our organization, and we produce and market eggs up and down the east coast from about probably three and a half million hen hens.
Lauren Hunter
So, I read that your feed is specially formulated to meet the specific nutritional needs of your birds. How is that feed specially formulated for that absolutely?
Trey Braswell
Yeah. You know, most everybody in the egg business, including ourselves, has a nutritionist, whether they’re on staff or they’re a consulting nutritionist, like ours, and the birds eat healthier than we do, or eat more of what they’re supposed to than we do, because we form our nutritionist formulates the diets or the recipes for exactly that breed of bird for exactly that stage of life and for the region.
Lauren Hunter
So Trey, I was looking at the company history, company facts, and I see where you, looking for the right word here, that I’m waiting for.
David Strickland
He has a diversified company.
Lauren Hunter
Yes, yes. Thank you, that you obviously do feed and you do eggs. It sounds like Braswell Family Farms is almost like a one stop shop does a little bit of everything.
Trey Braswell
That’s right, we would say it’s we’re vertically integrated. So at Braswell family farms, over the years, we’ve come to a place that we do everything from buying the grain and the other feed ingredients from local farmers and then other places around the world, and we mill the feed. So we bring all that in to our feed mill and and then we also buy the baby chicks at one day old, and then we raise them into through their pull it stage and then to layers, and we produce
the eggs, package and distribute. So we don’t produce hatching eggs, and we don’t hatch baby chicks, and we don’t actually farm like row crops, but we do everything else after that, all the way to getting the eggs to the store or the warehouse.
Lauren Hunter
Well, I also read that 50% of your produced feed is used to feed your pullets and layers, but then 25% of the feed is organic. What does that mean? The organic feed?
Trey Braswell
Yeah, so I mean, our feed mill was one of the earlier stages in our company’s life cycle. So, and we were, we were a commercial toll mill, and we produce feed for other people and and then also for our birds. And so now about half of our feed business goes outside the company, and the other half stays in. And so, and then the organic piece. We’re one of the larger commercial organic Mills on the East Coast. And organic is a segment of the protein business, whether it’s eggs or poultry meat or anything else where there is a whole another set of operating standards from the land that the crops are growing onto the facilities like the mill and the barns where we have the chickens, that we have to adhere to third party guidelines, but ultimately, we can’t use chemicals like round up to control the grass and round up and things can’t be used in the production of the grains or synthetic fertilizer. So, you know, people make decisions on what they eat based on some some is on their budget. Some is on their their nutrition. Some is on how they won’t you know, they believe their animals should be treated. And organic is just one segment of that of the marketplace, and it’s more of a they believe is a nutritional a nutritional decision.
Lauren Hunter
Well, let’s talk about you for a little bit. Trey, you are the fourth generation of the Braswell family to run the business. What led to your decision to return and take over the family business.
Trey Braswell
Yeah, I mean, as a kid, I loved being around the family business. Now we were smaller than and it was really neat because we had a lot of employees that I really honestly thought were my aunt and uncle, and we called them aunt so and so, or uncle so and so, because we spent time with them, some of them baby status. It was just a real close-knit thing. And so I really appreciated that. And then, you know, just love being around agriculture and birds and and so, you know, there was a season in college, you know, high school or college. Although I was working some of the business in the summers, I thought I just needed to do something else, at least for a time, and and ultimately, would would like to come back and work in the business. But, you know, ultimately, my dad’s health. My dad actually passed away this past fall, but he had a lot of health issues his whole life, and sometimes they were worse than others. And that time after college, when I was looking to go and kind of get out from out of the nest and out from everybody, under everybody’s wings, my dad’s health was at its worst, and I also had some other family members that were battling cancer, and I ended up coming on back home and and getting started. So it was, it was probably sooner than I wanted, and I was probably a little frustrated about that for a while, but, but it was certainly something I wanted to do. And all that frustration is well in the past. I love agriculture. I love our business, and, you know, I had a great sense of responsibility or gratitude for our team of employees, you know, past and present, and my
family and everything that they had done over the last, you know, since 19 in the early 1940s and I just, you know, just had a desire to honor that and be a part of that. And that’s ultimately what brought me back.
Lauren Hunter
Well, you decided to take over as president and CEO in 2017 right?
Trey Braswell
Yeah. So 2017 was when my title changed. It was, you know, not the responsibility didn’t change much. I had already assumed most of all those responsibilities due to my dad’s health. Probably back around 2010, 2011 but that’s when the title changed, and we did awesome rebranding of the company to Braswell Family Farms to really be able to communicate well with our consumers and our market. And so that that was an exciting year. That was the year that dad, you know, ultimately, quote, unquote, passed the torch. You know, I understand that can be hard to step aside or step down, but, you know, that was a good year for him, and I.
Lauren Hunter
Well, we’re really sorry to hear about the passing of your dad.
Trey Braswell
Thank you so much.
Lauren Hunter
What are some changes you’ve overseen at Braswell Family Farms in the past eight years, and also in the egg industry in general?
Trey Braswell
Sure, um, a lot I feel like, granted, it’s probably been like that every generation. But since, since I came back in 2008 it has been quite the whirlwind. A lot of things driven by some things driven by animal rights activists and their influence, and then just consumer choices. I mean, you know, the biggest part of our business is, is Eggland’s Best and other value added eggs, and that, you know, went from, say, 1990 that was 0% of the egg market to now it’s over 30% you know, Eggland’s Best and other value added eggs, like organic and excuse me, cage free. And pasture raised. And so that’s probably been, you know, the biggest change is seeing the the egg industry, transition so much of what it’s doing into into cage free, which is, you know, in Ecclesiastes, in the Scripture, it says there’s nothing new under the sun, and it’s right, we were doing cage free back before somebody came up with a better idea of creating a cage where we could give the chicken and better environment and keep away their predators and stop pecking. But now we’ve gone full circle and taking them back to the ground and taking them outside. So just watching all that has
been exciting and always brings new challenges, and the farmers always come up with a way to overcome that, even when it seems insurmountable.
Lauren Hunter
Absolutely. I mean, we talk about it all the time here at Poultry Times, how as a media company, we have to adapt as well. Sometimes you just have to, you try to get ahead of things, and then sometimes you just have to take them as they come.
David Strickland
That is true.
Lauren Hunter
Well, one hot button issue, if you will, in the last year or so has been the price of eggs. How has that affected your business? And as a follow up, where do you see the trend heading in the foreseeable future?
Trey Braswell
Well, I mean, the price of eggs hasn’t really, there’s been some increase in cost, but it’s really been driven by this, what seems to be unstoppable force of avian influenza. And you know, over the past couple of years, you know, at least a third of the nation’s egg supply has been depopulated and and it’s just starting to repopulate. So, you know, you take 20 to 30% of the supply chain away and in a commodity market that that’s going to quickly drive the price up to unheard of levels, and it has, but that’s it’s coming back down. It has come back down to to a more reasonable level. You know, everybody wants to be able to be profitable, but we don’t want people having to pay $8, $9 a dozen for eggs any more than they do. One thing egg farmers love is being able to supply people with a affordable and incredibly nutritious protein source. So I think that, I think that that; I don’t know what’s going to change about the disease. I think there’s going to be, continue to be new research. I think that the industry has incredible biosecurity practices. But I do think that prices will stabilize and and as the industry continues to edit facilities, the supply is going to continue to grow. So I just I perceive that things stay in a reasonable level where consumers can appreciate the price and the value they get per eggs, and egg farmers can, can keep a sustainable margin?
David Strickland
Absolutely. Trey, I want to bounce back on something I think that people might not know. You mentioned earlier, and if people don’t know, they might be interested in knowing this. I mean, I know Braswell has its own proprietary label, but you’re one of the founding member companies of Eggland’s Best. Can you tell us a bit more about what goes into being involved with that? I know probably your specialty feed line goes into that, you know, the requirement to be one of their eggs. But tell us a little bit more about that.
Trey Braswell
Absolutely, my dad says that that was, see my granddad died in 92 I believe it was, and it was my granddad, Ronald, and my Great Uncle Gene that took a chance back in the late 80s and purchased the Eggland’s Best franchise for North Carolina. And my dad says that was the greatest parting gift that my granddad gave him. Because, you know, I think at that time in the late 80s, when this idea of Eggland’s Best came up, and the two gentlemen that patented the feed formula that impacts the nutrition of the egg when they brought it over and sold franchises at the International Poultry Expo, I think that there was obviously a lot of naysayers that said that an egg is always just an egg. It’s never going to be, you know, you can’t differentiate it. And I think there were some, like my granddad and great uncle that said, Well, there’s, there’s gotta be a better way. Or one, we know, eggs are wonderful. And two, you know, we’ve got to try something different from this commodity business, where it can be so up and so far down and such a roller coaster. And so for the first few years, the company Eggland’s Best, which was then called Heartland’s Best, really stumbled and stuttered, because you’ll remember in the late 80s and early 90s, eggs unfortunately, had a undeserved bad rap, because they were. So the claim was, the eggs, you know, are high in cholesterol, caused heart disease and all those things. So they just had a real bad image, and to come in and say, well, these eggs are healthy for you, it was hard in those times, even if we knew that, hey, eggs, eggs aren’t bad, and these eggs are better because they’re lower in cholesterol, lower, and saturated fat and higher, and all these other vitamins. But my dad persevered, kept with it. My dad and others and they continued to invest in Eggland’s Best. And now Eggland’s Best is the number one branded specialty egg in the in the nation, with, I think, over 97% distribution and, and it’s, it’s been something that’s been, you know, God’s real, really, God’s gift to us that has been, you know, the the bread and butter for our business and and helped us to find our niche and differentiate ourselves And, and we’re really thankful for that,
David Strickland
Absolutely, I’m a firm believer of the old used motto that an egg a day is okay.
Lauren Hunter
Yeah. I mean, who doesn’t love egg? Egg is like I’ve always heard, the egg is the perfect food because of the amount of protein and nutritional benefits that you get from it. So you know, when I’m when I’m on one of my health kicks, I guess you could say I usually have a lot of eggs in my diet, because they’re good for you, they’re filling, they’re good source of protein, but they don’t they’re not fattening like some other foods might be. So we love eggs over here, too.
Trey Braswell
Oh, I eat a ton of eggs.
Lauren Hunter
Yes. So one of the other things I want to talk to you about Trey was how Braswell Family Farms is really involved in the community as well. Sounds like you do a lot of like philanthropy work and really try to give back to the community as well.
Trey Braswell
Yeah. I mean, that’s been this spirit of gratitude and generosity is something that’s been handed down through the generations. You know, we believe here at Braswell, we believe our businesses is the Lord’s. It’s a gift from the Lord that we’re responsibly be good stewards of. And so we’re excited to use our business as an opportunity to make a positive impact in people’s lives, and we see the the excess from our business as a means to do that and to give to organizations that are doing great Christ honoring work and just to support our community so our people here that work with us, their families, our communities and organizations that are around the world that are doing that are doing great things, whether it’s disaster recovery or food insecurity or addiction recovery, and, you know, trying to make a dent in human trafficking. So you know, those are all our businesses is a means for us to do ministry and to make an impact.
Lauren Hunter
So I’ve also read that well, obviously you probably know Trey, as we do that people are becoming more conscious of where their food comes from, and animal welfare and all of those things. So how does Braswell Family Farms prioritize ethical animal practices and welfare?
Trey Braswell
Sure. I mean, you know, every regardless of the type of system, because at Braswell Family Farms, where all about consumer choice, like we don’t think consumers should be forced into one or the other. They shouldn’t have to buy all caged and they shouldn’t have to buy all cage-free or all organic. Not everybody has the same budget, not everybody has the same values. And so we produce eggs from all types of systems. And each type of system we follow, you know, the industry leading, third party audited, you know, operational standards like the way that we produce in a cage or the way that we produce on pasture is according to, you know, best practices, veterinarian certified best practices. We have, you know, onboarding, paperwork and training that employees have to do, and we have a zero-tolerance policy for mistreating animals. So if we hear of or see an employee or a contractor or vendor, you know, being negligent with the animals, there’s, there’s, there’s no there’s no grace. It’s you’re not allowed on our facilities. You’re not going to work here.
Lauren Hunter
Yeah, I think that’s a good policy to have, no cruelty toward the chickens.
Trey Braswell
Absolutely, no way!
Lauren Hunter
Well, Trey, thank you so much for joining us today on The Coop Scoop. For those of you who are listening, this is Trey Braswell, President and CEO of Braswell Family Farms. We’ve really enjoyed talking with you today, Trey, is there anything else you want to add before we let you go?
Trey Braswell
No, I really enjoyed it. I appreciate the opportunity enjoy reading your work, and I just I hope you have a wonderful day and enjoy the summertime.
Lauren Hunter
Thank you so much. We appreciate it. Thank you again, Trey. Thank you for joining us on this week’s episode of Poultry Times The Coop Scoop,
Please note that the opinions expressed on this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of Poultry Times or our advertisers. Join us next week by visiting poultrytimes.com or your favorite podcast platform. If you have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please email us at contactus@poultrytimes.com.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
