Rebecca Tierney

And as Dara said, the premium doesn't always come back to the farmer.

And in comparison, a barn egg to a free range egg with the additional costs, but also the additional risk whereby the birds are outdoors.

They're mingling potentially with wild birds.

They're pecking in the ground that potentially contains some infection or worms or anything like nature.

They have additional costs associated with that then as well.

In terms of supply, the risk or the reason for a shortage of supply at the current minute is that our demand has increased drastically in the last number of years in terms of consumption of eggs, which is brilliant.

It's exactly what we want.

So our demand has gone from about 181 eggs back in 2018-19.

to 215 to 225 is the average consumption of eggs by the Irish consumer.

So it's massive.

Now that's eating whole eggs, whether that be scrambled or omelettes or whatever it be, and included in your baked goods as well.

So to meet that demand, our production hasn't expanded in line with that.

And the reason for that is the sheer cost to get into this industry.

You're talking, no matter what size you look at now, in terms of commercial size flock, the smallest you would see for a free range would be 16,000.

And you're talking 1.5, 1.6 million.

Up front.

Yeah, to build that unit.

And then you purchase your birds, your feed and everything thereafter.

So that's just your...

your house, your equipment, your egg store, your manure store, and that gets you in.