Hands-on as 10,000 eggs need grading

By Gemma Hockey

Fire destroyed Castel Farm Eggs’ packing shed on Saturday.

CASTEL Farm Eggs has continued its daily production of 10,000 eggs despite a fire that ravaged the packing shed.

Owners of the La Vassalerie operation, Martin and Gill Freeman, which supplies to all Sandpiper-owned stores, Le Riche, Island Wide, Alliance and the Co-op, are determined to keep up the daily rigours of the business.

‘We have just under 16,000 chickens producing on average 10,000 eggs a day,’ said Mrs Freeman. ‘It’s business as usual but because of the fire we lost the piece of machinery that grades the eggs by size, so we are having to do it all by hand.

‘It normally takes about one-and-a-half hours but it is taking us much longer without the equipment and there isn’t anything like it in the island.

‘We are managing to keep going and we want customers to know that they will still be able to get their eggs and we will still be supplying to shops as usual,’ she said. ‘It’s a mystery as to how the fire happened. We are waiting to see what the investigators find.’

Mrs Freeman said it wasn’t just the barn that had been lost, its content and the machinery but also 40 years-worth of records including all the business’s financial documentation at an estimated cost of £100,000.

‘We keep remembering the things that we have lost because there was so much in there,’ she said.

Mr Freeman, who spent the morning with the insurance investigator, said he was still extremely thankful that he had not lost any chickens.

‘We had equipment delivered yesterday, some arrived today and more is coming at the weekend,’ he said. ‘We had a delivery of boxes the other day so that all went up in smoke. We are so lucky that the hens are OK,’ he said.

‘We cannot thank the firemen enough. One of the hen houses had a lot of smoke, but they seem to be fine.’

He said it was a relief that the hens had kept on producing. ‘The good thing is that hens don’t stop laying and they all seem OK.’