The Vital Voice

We were pleased to host 17 members of the Florida Whole Foods Market Marketing team at our South Austin Farm last week. The group braved the morning heat, had tons of great questions and really enjoyed visiting our girls, as well as site-seeing and eating ice cream made from Vital Farms eggs at great restaurants, like La Condesa. Thanks for the visit, Florida! We look forward to having groups of bloggers, chefs and customers out to the farm in the Fall.

Check out some of our visitors’ quotes below:

The farm was absolutely beautiful. Letting chickens be chickens -
running around pecking the ground for bugs, worms, natural nutrients!
It put everything into perspective when Jason said “Our chickens don’t
just have access to the outdoors, they are outdoors with access to the
inside.” Just another example of the importance of knowing our farmers
and creating win-win partnerships. Thank you again for letting us see
first hand how farming is meant to be! P.S. La Condessa – AMAZING!
Highly recommend to anyone visiting Austin, TX.
– WFM Naples

Last night 18 or so of us were fortunate enough to enjoy the ice
creams at La Condesa made with your eggs … amazing! Since we
couldn’t all agree on a favorite, we’ll just have to make another
visit back soon (and get more breakfast burritos too!) Thanks for the
hospitality and the education, we’ll never look at egg farming the
same way. Keep up the good work and say hi to ‘the ladies!’
- WFM Aventura

Tell the chickens we had a great time hanging out with them in their
beautiful green pastures and thanks for all of the most amazing eggs!
– WFM Wellington

At vital farms pasture-raised organic eggs, the story begins with
organic, green pastures where their girls spend each & every day.
Their humane farming practices provides the birds with an outdoor
lifestyle where they are free to exhibit natural behaviors & forage.
- WFM Boca Raton

Hi there! We truly appreciate your taking the time to show us your
incredible farm. La Condesa was amazing – especially the ice cream
using eggs from Vital Farms! We’ll definitely be in touch.
- WFM Coral Gables

Thanks so much for having us out and showing us around. It was a great
learning experience and we’ll be taking it back to educate our
customers and team members. Dinner was really good. Didn’t have a bad
meal the entire time we were in Austin. What a great city. Thanks
again and we’ll be in touch if we need any more info about your
amazing eggs. – WFM Ft. Lauderdale

Thank you so much for the tour! We LOVE VITAL FARMS!!!
– WFM Palm Beach Gardens

Matt O'Hayer, (Left) Michael Cox, (Center) Jason Jones (Right)

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in living in Summers, AR. on the farm with my dad. I just turned 30 last week. Now it’s time to grow up! Currently my wife Courtney and our two boys Tate and Jax live on our Holcroft farm, which is where we have our Vital Farms production.
How did you start chicken farming? What did you do before this?

I was raised in the egg business. My grandfather oversaw Cargill’s egg operation until his retirement and my father began with a contract to produce for Cargill in 1981. My father broke from Cargill and produced as an independent farmer in 1984. From that he grew into a vertically integrated company with pullet production, laying production, feed mill, processing plant, and trucking. I grew up around the farm. I was often into trouble with my siblings and had to pack eggs for punishment! I still hate packing eggs to this day. I have never had a job off the farm. One year into college I dropped out to work full time on the farm. In 2001 I started Arkansas Egg. We were a caged egg producer.
Why do you think it’s important to raise animals using organic feed, an environmental consciousness and humane conditions?

At one time my father had 2.5 million hens. When I began I had around 800,000. That’s small stuff compared to the big guys in the industry. Today you have farms with 605,000 birds in a single barn and 6 million on a farm. To me, the number is for shock value. A small cage house with 30,000 birds has the same conditions as the largest of barns. We converted into organic production for several reasons. One, we had old, run down facilities which helped me see first hand the environmental and welfare issues that accompanied (a conventional) style of production. Second, the market for this production was stable compared to the conventional side. We could obtain the margins we needed to do a lot of things differently, the right way.

Conventional egg production is a great example of how over the last 50 years, the focus has been on cheap food at all cost. Most consumers demand it. Look at prop 2 in California. 60% of citizens voted for it. Only 5% of consumers support it at the store by buying a cage free egg. That’s an astounding voter disconnect. In 1950 it took Americans 2.5 hours of work on avg. to pay for 1 dozen eggs. Today it takes a fraction of that time. Americans spend less on food than any other nation and they get what they pay for.

We began transitioning to organic production in 2007. Today we are 100% organic, cage free and pasture roaming. For us its about two distinctly different advantages. One is the living conditions and overall welfare of the birds compared to traditional cage production. The second is that by being Certified Organic, our consumers can know with certainty they are getting a food that fits their lifestyle or diet needs. These two items are big issues to consumers today.

What do you see happening to family farms in your area and the U.S. in general?

As food production focus has been on cheap foods, there is a direct trend to what’s happening on the family farm. Farming in general has a grow or die mentality. Small farms are dying as new, larger ones take their place. In one generation, a family farm that made a living on a small dairy herd and a small barn of chickens is gone. Today’s family farms typically are sustained with a job in town. It takes hundreds of thousands of chickens or 100′s of cattle in a herd to make a living.

Our contract farms that produce for Vital Farms are making a better living raising a fraction of the birds they once did. We get over one hundred calls a year from producers wanting to know if we are looking for more contract production. A shift to sustainable farming practices (with a focus on animal welfare) is dependent on the consumers’ willingness to pay more for that item and understand why it costs more. Organic farming has been a breath of life into small farms across the country. It creates an environment where the focus is on doing the right thing, not the cheapest thing. As a result the products cost more to produce and net more income that sustain this method of production.
How did you meet Jason and Matt? What attracted you to Vital Farms?

How I met Matt and Jason is a funny story. I became interested in pasture egg production in 2009. After only a few weeks of thinking hard about how I would peruse this, Matt called me out of the blue about buying some feed from our mill. Before that, I had heard of Vital Farms but knew nothing of them. We talked for 30 minutes on our first call and it ended with a planned visit to Austin the next week. I have felt good about our relationship from the first call. We are very excited about the opportunities ahead.
What do you like to do besides farming?

Outside of working I enjoy hunting and fishing and spending every minute possible outside.

Our hens have a drink from our drip-down hydration system

As the rest of the U.S. heats up, in the Southern States it’s been steamy for about a month already. At our farms, we make sure to keep our hens hydrated while giving them plenty of access to shade. Pasture-raising is still a very successful and viable method of farming, even in the heat. However, even when monitored very closely, heat stress can disrupt a chicken’s laying process and affect the overall quality of their eggs. High temperatures will put additional stress on the body, which also directly affects interior egg quality. As the days get hotter, it becomes  highly important to monitor water availability, feed intake, and duration of eggs  exposed to high temperatures.

In order to maintain a body temperature of about 106.5 degrees, the chicken must  increase its rate of breathing (panting) to cool itself down. Heavy panting increases  CO2 in the blood, which causes the pH of the blood to become alkaline. This  disturbance in acid-base balance can reduce the availability of calcium. Calcium intake  reduction is not only due to pH disturbance, but also to reduced feed consumption.  (The less heat needed to maintain body temperature, the less feed the chicken will eat). Reduced feed consumption will then directly influence the metabolism of a chicken. This heat stress can cause more soft shelled and cracked eggs in the summer.  A little water in the feed becomes a treat for the ladies and they love it! Along with the reasons listed above, and the obvious threat of dehydration, it is crucial to have adequate amounts of COOL water supplied to laying hens at all times! (And any other

Heat can damage egg quality, so in the summer, we gather eggs quickly and often

animal spending lots of time outside, for that matter). The duration of eggs left in the summer heat should also be monitored at all times, as this diminishes the egg quality. Lastly, a major indication of the overall interior quality of an egg is the albumen (egg white). A thinning or watery albumen is a sign of quality loss. When cracked on a plate, the yolk should be in a central position surrounded by a thick albumen. Quality control is very important to us, and we’d like to give our customers all of the information they need to recognize quality when they see it.

We know you will enjoy our delicious and nutritious Summer eggs! Please keep in mind that we are more than happy to give consumers insight into our daily farm operations. Tell us, what about pastured, organic hens is a mystery to you?

Often in our communications with customers, we focus on the quality and uniqueness of our pasture-raised organic eggs. We describe the lifestyle our birds enjoy and the importance of environmental stewardship. This week, we want to focus on another aspect of our sustainable business model: the importance of, and our commitment to, our farm workers and staff.

Even though we are now available in Whole Foods coast to coast, the size of our flocks is…well…paltry in comparison to other farms at the national level. Smaller flock size means more employees per bird, which in turn means our farm hands have

Sergio gathering eggs

meaningful interactions and relationships with the girls. (Dana, our Onion Creek Farm Manager, always seems to refer to our hens as, “the Ladies,” and knows quite a few of them by sight and personality). At the moment, our production base is four family farms in Central Texas and three in Arkansas and Oklahoma. At each of these, the relationship between human custodians and the birds is respectful and personal. We see this as a major benefit to having small operations (by industry standards).

It’s also our responsibility to ensure the welfare of our team members. The company pays in full for quality, comprehensive  coverage health insurance for our employees and staff in Austin. We also make sure the working environment is as safe as possible, through our policies (seatbelts are a MUST on the tractor!) and the tools we provide our team (see video: we recently upgraded to an automated egg lift for loading eggs onto our washer, minimizing physical exertion). Our commitment is also, once we’re able, to implement a profit sharing plan so that our entire crew benefits from our success.

In line with these values, we believe in profit sharing with our staff and with charitable organizations. Most corporations hold their shareholders in the highest regard: we prefer to prioritize our staff, customers and animals. As we (hopefully) continue to grow rapidly, we are committed to sharing profits with our staff. We have also contributed to the Whole Planet Foundation since before we began turning a profit. (The Whole Planet Foundation is a private, nonprofit organization established by Whole Foods Market, which provides grants to microfinance institutions in Latin America, Africa and Asia). We believe in their capacity to help others make a difference, just as we do our part to improve farming standards in the U.S.

Want to know what happens to our eggs between the farm and your grocery store? Here’s a sneak peak into the washing and packaging of eggs at our South East Austin, TX distribution center.  Enjoy!

1. Eggs arrive directly from the farm in milk crates.

2. Eggs are given an initial rinse.

3. Eggs are placed onto conveyor belt before being candled to check
for cracks and other imperfections the eye cannot see.

4. Eggs are washed/scrubbed single-file in the “car wash” with
brushes, hot water, and a mild, organic cleaning solution.

5. Eggs go through the dryer and final scrubbing.

6. Eggs are weighed and sorted by size.

7. Eggs are packed into cartons by hand, and cartons are placed into
case boxes for shipping.

8. Case boxes are shipped to stores across the U.S.!

Here’s a sad fact: Most of the conventionally, and even organically raised hens in the US never see the light of day, or a single blade of green grass in their entire life. In direct and intentional contrast to these inhumane conditions, Vital Farms chickens are pasture-raised and Certified

Vital Farms hens in Spring Pasture

Humane ™, in addition to USDA certified organic. Our number one goal is to embody responsible animal husbandry and the highest quality food production.

Our girls spend their days in the fresh air, comfortably grazing native grass in small flocks. Regular rotation onto fresh pasture keeps the land protected from over-grazing, and provides the birds a change of scenery and loads of exercise.

In addition to foliage, laying hens need some supplemental feed in order to lay eggs optimally. We source the very best, certified organic feed we can find, which is free from GMO corn, hormones, and pesticides. Those of us that work on the farm will from time to time taste the hens’ feed ourselves, to ensure quality and satiate our curiosity. We would venture to say that you’ll probably never see a farmer from a typical factory farm taste what he feeds his birds. One rule of thumb: never feed a hen something you wouldn’t be comfortable eating yourself (except maybe the odd bug!).

In this same vein, our birds don’t take antibiotics, and we never de-beak our girls as this isn’t humane and can hinder their natural foraging process. We have taken birds off other farms that have already been de-beaked, effectively rescuing them from less fortunate circumstances.

Our enthusiastic customers know that the flavor of pasture-raised eggs is far superior to those produced by factory farmed, conventionally raised birds. Our girls are omnivores – they eat bugs, worms, berries, wild flowers and even wild onion and garlic! This is why the color of the yolks and flavor of the eggs vary according to the seasons.

As if there weren’t enough reasons to try pasture-raised eggs, they also contain:

• 1⁄4 less saturated fat
• 2⁄3 more Vitamin A
• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
• 3 times more Vitamin E
• Lower cholesterol
• 7 times more beta carotene
• 4 to 6 times more vitamin D than conventional eggs

Vital Farms eggs may cost a little more than your usual dozen. However, keep in mind that when you buy our pasture-raised eggs, you are supporting your ecosystem, the humane treatment of thousands of appreciative birds, our environment, and your health. What’s worth more than that?

CORNUCOPIA, WI — The Cornucopia Institute, the leading proponent of ecologically produced local, organic and authentic food issued a 64 page independent report today that focuses on widespread abuses in organic egg production, primarily by large industrial agribusinesses. The study also profiles the exemplary management practices employed by many family-scale organic farmers engaged in egg production, including Vital Farms, while spotlighting abuses at so-called factory farms.  In many cases hundreds of thousands of chickens are confined in industrial facilities, and these eggs are then represented to consumers as “organic.”

The report will be formally presented to the US Department of Agriculture at the October meeting of the National Organic Standards Board in Madison, Wisconsin.

The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based farm policy research group, developed the report, Scrambled Eggs: Separating Factory Farm Egg Production from Authentic Organic Agriculture, following nearly two years of research into organic egg production. The report also contains a scorecard rating various egg brands on how their eggs are produced in accordance with federal organic standards and consumer expectations.

The Organic Egg Scorecard’s top rating is “5 Eggs”.  Vital Farms received this “Exemplary” distinction from Cornucopia Institute:

http://www.cornucopia.org/organic-egg-scorecard/egg_profiles/FarmID_21.html

“At Vital Farms we consider our girls (hens) to be our most important partner in producing the highest quality food”, said Jason Jones, Vital Farms’ President.  “Giving them plenty of room to forage, roam, and simply act like the birds they are is the least we can do.  We are extremely pleased that Cornucopia recognizes our efforts and the work of other ethical egg farmers throughout the US”.

According to Mark A. Kastel, The Cornucopia Institute’s co-director and senior farm policy analyst, “After visiting over 15% of the certified egg farms in the United States, and surveying all name-brand and private-label industry marketers, it’s obvious that a high percentage of the eggs on the market should be labeled ‘produced with organic feed’ rather than bearing the USDA-certified organic logo”.

The report points out that many of the giant factory farmed organic eggs are produced in giant henhouses, some holding 85,000 birds or more, provide no legitimate access to the outdoors, as required in the federal organic regulations.

“Many of these operators are gaming the system by providing minute enclosed porches, with roofs and concrete or wood flooring, and calling these structures ‘the outdoors,’” stated Charlotte Vallaeys, a farm policy analyst with Cornucopia and lead author of the report. “Many of the porches represent just 3 to 5 percent of the square footage of the main building housing the birds. That means 95 percent or more of the birds have absolutely no access whatsoever.”

Cornucopia has filed legal complaints against several poultry companies that either offer their birds no access to the outdoors or “faux” outdoor access—very small enclosed porches. A copy of the complaint can be seen here:  http://www.cornucopia.org/egg-report/Eggs_LegalComplaint.pdf

“An important subset of organic farmers are even going far beyond the minimum requirements in the organic standards: not just providing access to the outdoors but rotating birds on high-quality pasture,” affirmed Vallaeys.

Birds on pasture at Vital Farms Austin

Laying hens on pasture-based farms tend to be under less stress—based on their greater opportunity to exercise and ability to engage in instinctive foraging behaviors that cuts down on aggression toward their flock mates.

Organic customers are also becoming increasingly aware of a growing body of scientific literature confirming the nutritional superiority of eggs when the birds have an opportunity to eat fresh forage, seeds, worms and insects.

“Scrambled Eggs” and the organic egg brand scorecard can be viewed here:  http://www.cornucopia.org/2010/09/organic-egg-report-and-scorecard/

“Just as with our dairy brand scorecard, our goal is to empower consumers and wholesale buyers with information to make good, discerning purchasing decisions—rewarding the heroes and sending a strong message to the bad actors,” Kastel stated.

“These giant ‘factory farms,’ or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), generally produce eggs from caged birds, but they have diversified, depending on which way the marketing winds blow, to cage-free, vegetarian, omega-3 and the organic label,” Kastel added.

“Consumers are increasingly demanding to know where their food comes from, and the conditions under which items like eggs are produced,” Jones goes on to say.  ”The lifestyle of the animals like laying hens matters.  We appreciate Cornucopia for increasing the transparency of organic farming in an independent way.”

We’ve gotten a ton of questions lately asking if our eggs are affected by the salmonella recall.  We’re happy to say the answer is, “No!”  Hopefully, we’ll all benefit by more people taking a hard look at our food system today.  Here’s Matt’s take on the tainted egg issue, and who’s really to blame:

Take a moment to search the net for “Salmonella Egg Blame” and you’ll see a list of prime targets.  Among them:  ‘battery cages,’ ‘factory farming,’ ‘Wright County Egg,’ ‘industrial food production,’ ‘Hillandale Farms,’ ‘Jack DeCoster,’ ‘tainted chicken feed,’ ‘USDA,’ ‘FDA,’ the ‘US Senate’ and even ‘Barack Obama.’  The real culprit, however, is the US consumer.

Every decade for the past 150 years, the percentage of our income that we spend for food has decreased.  We now spend less than 10% of our income feeding ourselves compared to over 15% thirty years ago and over 50% before 1900.  To put this in more concrete terms, in 1875 it took 1,700 hours of work to purchase the annual food supply for a family.  Today it takes about 260 hours of work.  Oh, and in 1875 we spent 1% of our annual income on health care.  Today, we spend over 16%.  Not surprisingly, health care costs have tracked the food cost trend, but in the opposite direction.

Rose Acre Farms in Iowa; HSUS investigation Feb-Mar 2010 (Humane Society of the US)

We live in a food democracy.  Each day we vote with our wallets at grocery stores and markets throughout the US.  Over 90% of the eggs purchased by the US consumer are factory farmed, caged, non-organic, non pasture raised, non free range eggs selling for less than ten cents per egg.

To produce such an egg, producers must keep the hens in abysmal industrial farming conditions which the European Union and voters in the State of California have deemed inhumane and have outlawed.  Economics dictate that these hens are fed the lowest quality ingredients available, including at times meat and bone meal from – you guessed it – other dead chickens.  The total cost of this feed cannot exceed about two cents per hen, per day.  That’s like feeding humans for less than $1 per day.

In May of this year four college interns, sponsored by Whole Planet Foundation, took up residence in Pena Blanca, Guatemala with a mandate of living on $1 per day each.  This is what the poorest of poor live on worldwide.  The college students’ goal was to see if they could do the same – and experience the consequences.  They succeeded.  When I met up with them last month in their tiny dirt floor hut (think large battery cage), they had lost nearly 15 lbs each and had contracted a host of parasites and diseases including e. Coli poisoning, but they had survived on $1 per day each.  They are currently producing a documentary on their travails and those of Guatemala’s poor (more at www.onedollaraday.weebly.com).  They are also finishing up a regimen of heavy antibiotics, anti-parasites and anti-amoebas.  Sure, we can survive on $1 per day just as a hen can survive on two cents.  But, what’s the real cost?

Vital Farm eggs sell for around $5-$7 per dozen in stores and farmer’s markets.   Why so much?  Because it costs more to produce high quality food.  Our girls live outdoors, on healthy green pastures during daylight hours.  They eat native grasses and an organic feed ration that I’ve eaten by the handful (don’t try this with the feed given to hens laying ten cent eggs).  They run around, get exercise, take dust baths and generally get to act as the birds they are.  Thus, they produce an egg that has only 179 mg of cholesterol (vs. 200-280 for other eggs) and even contains vitamin C!

Hens being hens at Vital Farms.

We as consumers have no problem spending $1-$2 at home for our main entre (or a can of soda).  Why then do we have a problem buying $7/dozen eggs that will cost about $1.25 for a two-egg omelet?  Why do we believe that that omelet should cost $0.20 instead?

Michael Pollan, author of “Omnivore’s Dilemma” defends his purchase of $8/dozen eggs in a recent Wall Street Journal article by stating that we should all “Pay more, eat less.”  If we buy ten cent eggs, we are to blame for the conditions that produce tainted foods.