The Lakes Free Range Egg Co.

Set up in 1997, the Lakes Free Range Egg Company has always stuck to a simple ethos – to provide the best habitats for their 70,000 organic and free range hens. A key part of this is ‘range enrichment’ by planting trees on pasture so that more of their birds range outside. As a result ‘The Lakes’ get an average 314 eggs per bird per year compared to a UK average of up to 250.

The Lakes’ environmental and animal welfare principals and quality production has enabled them to secure customers like McDonald’s, who they have been supplying since 2002, and still work closely with on animal welfare and innovation initiatives.

For The Lakes innovation is key, they are constantly looking for ways to reduce energy consumption and have designed and built a state of the art egg packing facility that is set to be the UK’s first carbon neutral egg packing factory. This has attracted new retail customers who share the same principles – including Booths, Sainsbury’s and Tesco.