From their excellently-managed farm in Carrowdore, County Down, the Clements family have been producing, packing and distributing high-quality Free Range and fresh eggs for the catering, retail and wholesale markets for over four decades. We touched base with Philip Clements Jnr. to find out more about this market-leading third-generation family enterprise.
A recent recipient of the coveted Great Taste Award, Clements Eggs is an exceptional family-run business that has been producing, packing and distributing fresh and tasty Free Range and fresh farm eggs direct from their County Down farm for over 40 years. The business was started by Billy and Georgie Clements in 1974 and expanded quickly due to strong demand for fresh high quality eggs in the local area.
The third-generation family business is now run by Billie and Georgie’s son, Philip Clements Snr., and his son, Philip Clements Jnr. Clements Eggs distribute throughout Northern Ireland and further afield, employing six and producing 300,000 eggs per week from around 50,000 hens.
Everything is done in-house to ensure only the finest quality products reach customers from the catering and retail sectors, including cafes, hotels, supermarkets and members of the public through independent retail outlets. The fact that Clements supply eggs to Hastings Hotels speaks for itself, while other customers include local Super Valu, Centra, Spar and Mace stores.
Clements – who benefit from a high level of repeat business and have been supplying some customers for over four decades – have an egg for everyone; from the discerning chef to a growing family, they produce and distribute a full range of small, medium, large and extra large Free Range and fresh farm eggs – fully compliant to DARD and Food Standards Agency standards – in both catering and retail packs.
Controlling all aspects of production on their family-run farm for 42 years and counting, Clements Eggs have evolved into one of the largest and most sought-after egg producers and packers in the region. Every day, they collect, sort, grade, pack and distribute thousands of eggs in multiple configurations dictated by customers’ individual requirements.
As eggs can be dispatched within hours of being laid, freshness is a given. Maintaining complete control of every aspect of all processes from production through to distribution has enabled Clements Eggs to develop a business model with no weak link, no variables and no compromise on quality:
“We pride ourselves on doing everything ourselves,” Philip Jnr. confirms. “We rear the chicks from one-day old and then produce, pack, distribute and market all our own eggs. We deal directly with customers. We’d have 50,000 laying hens here at any given time as well of a batch of 13,000 that we’re rearing from day-olds until they are ready to start laying at 22/23 weeks.
“We cover Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and have also tapped into the Dublin market. Eggs are supplied into the wholesale, retail and catering sector, with a lot of our produce going into food service here.”
As endorsements come, supplying Hastings Hotels is about as impressive as any producer could wish for. “What they are really looking for is consistency and we can provide that seeing as we handle everything ourselves,” Philip Jnr. continues. “We won that contract in partnership with Get Fresh Ltd., who we have been supplying for many years. Get Fresh put Hastings Hotels in touch with us when they were looking to source quality, fresh, local Free Range eggs and they came down to the farm in person to see our hens and our packing store and thankfully they were well impressed.”
One of the drawbacks of being in such big demand is that the family members don’t get a lot of time off. They’re extremely busy ensuring that the farm runs like clockwork to consistently produce excellent, great-tasting eggs – but Philip wouldn’t have it any other way. “You don’t have much of a social life. Either myself or my dad have to be here on the farm all the time to keep an eye on things and it’s hard to get time off for family events or social occasions. We have a lorry and a van on the road distributing to restaurants, shops, wholesalers and hotels, and one of us would normally be out looking after those deliveries as well.”
Reflecting on how his late grandfather, Billy, came to set up the business, Philip relates: “He kept dairy and beef cattle and always had a small henhouse as well. People used to come and collect eggs and then he started to deliver them. When this farm came up for sale he bought it and he soon realised it would be a better living than the beef and dairy.”
Plans are in the pipeline to add a new 16,000-unit free-range house to the farm, where a new stainless steel Moba egg grader was installed two years ago, to very precisely weigh eggs individually. As the grader has the potential to grade 30,000 eggs per hour and the free-range capacity is set to increase substantially, Clements Eggs are well poised to meet the increased demand for their product.”
Quality and high standards are at the forefront of everything that happens on the Carrowdore farm. “A lot of it comes down to feed,” says Philip Jnr. “We use AW Ennis feed and nothing compares to it. Without that feed, you just wouldn’t get the same egg. We walk the hens two or three times a day to make sure everything is as it should be, to make sure they’re not missing feed or water. We also have an alarm system in place that will alert us if anything is amiss.”
Receiving the Great Taste Award for Clements Free Range Eggs is a nice feather in the cap. “It’s good to get it,” says Philip, “but at the same time we would still have been producing quality eggs anyway. I just thought I’d try for the award and thankfully we got it.”
Hundreds, nay thousands, of customers will attest to the quality of Clements Eggs. “There’s one woman in Bangor who has been taking a-dozen-and-a-half off us every week almost since the beginning. We’re renowned for the excellent quality of our eggs and that’s something we are very proud of.
“If we had surplus eggs, I’d be concerned,” the Down man concludes. “Eggs have taken a bit of a dip in the past year and the cost of feed has gone up since the Brexit announcement, so we had to increase the price of our eggs slightly but all of our customers stayed with us for quality and service. Many of them have been with us for as long as I can remember because they won’t get the same quality elsewhere.”
Clements Eggs,
34b New Road,
Carrowdore,
Newtownards,
County Down,
BT22 2HB.
Telephone 028 91861473
Email: [email protected]
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 4 No 9, November/December 2016
