BEWHOLME is a quiet little village with a population of just 232 at the 2011 census . It increased by two since the census ten years previously and the likelihood is that they were called Elliott . You could say it ’ s as sure as eggs is eggs , to coin a phrase that is highly appropriate for this farming family .

Manor House is where Stewart Elliott moved to with his parents Rex and Muriel in 1957 . It ran to 210 acres at the time and was a mixed arable and livestock enterprise incorporating variably poultry , pigs and calves through the 60s , 70s and 80s , alongside the growing of cereal crops .

It was the purchase of a shed from the old Butlin ’ s Holiday Camp at Filey that began the change to today ’ s operation that sees brothers Tom ( 38 ), Mark ( 35 ) and Philip ( 31 ) running an egg business that is the twelfth largest in the UK and farming across an ever increasing acreage either owned , rented and or through agricultural contracting in the Holderness area .

‘ Dad went into free range poultry in 1989 ,’ says Tom . ‘ The shed he bought was turned into a free range shed for 3000 hens , which at the time was one of the biggest hen sheds in Yorkshire . Today you can get up sheds for up to 64,000 . He had a contract with Dean ’ s Foods and built up with additional sheds during the 90s and in 2004 to take us to 40,000

hens . Goldenlay had been bought out by Dean ’ s Foods and then Noble Foods . It got to the point where we were making very little money out of them .’

‘ I had come back to the farm in 2002 after my studies at Bishop Burton College and having worked on other farms . I was keen to find more work to do here , so we started milling our wheat produced on the farm in 2004 for feed . At around the same time we took on another 100 acres at Skipsea to get the feed mill going . I also started as an agricultural contractor around 2005-07 , combining and hiring myself out with the tractor .’

‘ In 2007 mum ( Caroline ) and dad formed the Eggsell farmer cooperative with two other farmers , as we were out of contract with Noble and they wanted to add value to the eggs , make them more profitable . We also decided to build a small egg packing station and go out and sell them as an egg round in the area . That ’ s when Mark came into the business . He had come back from university and had no intention of farming but took on the egg packing side .’

‘ We then had Eggsell , which was set up to supply supermarkets ; and the Elliott ’ s brand to sell locally to butchers , farm

shops and on the round . The Elliott ’ s business is what Mark set up .’

‘ By 2010 we had 20 members in the Eggsell cooperative with eggs being ‘ ranch packed ’ at packing stations all around the country . It worked okay for a while , but it ran into problems and I was asked to go in as managing director . We ’ d had another man handling the management up until then but since I ’ d been handling all the transport logistics I knew the business .’

The Eggsell and Elliott ’ s businesses have been transformed in the past decade and every egg that is produced by today ’ s 35 producers in the cooperative is now hauled to Bewholme from as far afield as Leicester and Newcastle , but with most of the cooperative based to the east of the A1 in Yorkshire .

‘ We put in our first grader in 2008 and a larger one in 2009 to cope with Eggsell and Elliott ’ s . We are now grading 750,000 eggs per day that are collected from the cooperative ’ s members at least twice weekly . Eggsell now sells to LIDL , Morrisons , Booker , ASDA as well as to The Ivy restaurant chain and schools .’

‘ It has been a very tough time in the egg trade but the prices don ’ t fluctuate as much as in the pig industry . When lockdown came it kicked off panic buying and we took on another three members of staff to keep up with demand .’

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