Special breeds bring colour and variety to eggs, says Richard Clarke
Next time you have a dinner party, don’t be surprised if one of your guests brings you something a little out of the ordinary. Philip Lee-Woolf, founder of Clarence Court, says that people often give their hosts half a dozen of his company’s striking blue (yes, blue) eggs instead of a bottle of wine.
Their puzzled looks soon give way to amazement, he claims, as yet another follower is recruited to the cause.
To say it’s his company isn’t strictly true. A year and a half ago, he sold Clarence Court to Cornish egg packer Clifford Kent - but it’s almost as if he hadn’t. He remains officially an adviser and consultant but, in reality, he is the company’s soul and public face.
Lee-Woolf built Clarence Court from scratch in 1990 when, sick of making chairs for a living, he bought a farm in the Worcestershire market town of Broadway and a flock of 100 pure-breed laying hens.
Over the years, he developed his own breeds of slow-growing, free-range hens, firstly the Old Cotswold Legbar, which lays the aforementioned blue eggs, and later the Burford Brown, which produces eggs swathed in a cloak of rich, chocolate brown.
Then, in 1999, after nearly a decade supplying modest volumes to Harrods, Fortnum & Mason and Harvey Nichols, he took the risk of investing in a much larger flock and approaching the supermarkets.
“The eggs were going like wildfire; I was gripped by it,” he recalls. “I thought, ‘I’ve got something here that everybody seems to want but nobody else seems to be doing’.”
Tesco was the first supermarket visited by Lee-Woolf, arms full of Old Cotswold Legbar eggs. But they knocked him back. “They said nobody would buy blue eggs.”
Waitrose, however, snapped them up. As luck would have it, says Lee-Woolf: “Waitrose was starting to look for something different in eggs. Probably, if I’d gone to them a year before, they wouldn’t have gone for it.”
Six months later, Tesco came on the phone: they wanted the eggs after all. Sainsbury followed, then Safeway.
The eggs are coming out of Safeway following Morrisons’ takeover, though a new deal with Somerfield has softened the blow.
The multiples now buy 90% of the 360,000 eggs Clarence Court produces each week and the eggs are available in supermarkets nationwide. Many supermarkets also stock Clarence Court’s duck and quail eggs.
So if the garden is so rosy, why did Lee-Woolf sell up? In the end, it was a pragmatic decision. Clarence Court’s packing facilities on Coach House Farm were at full stretch. “It got to the point when we knew we would have to spend a lot of money on the packing room,” he says.
“We needed to take a major step forward and this is where Clifford Kent came in. Michael Kent, who runs it, is a forward thinking, imaginative chap. He’s also got a big, brilliant new packing machine.”
Lee-Woolf now runs a hatchery from his farm for Clarence Court, ensuring farmers who produce eggs for the company - and 150 have been contracted to do so - have the finest birds to work with.
But perhaps his most important task is to make sure the company doesn’t become so successful that it loses its way. Turnover is expected to increase from £1.3m last year to about £2m this year. And sales are forecast to double again in the next two years.
Lee-Woolf admits: “It’s difficult because we’re quite big now. And it’s not just that we are trying to maintain our image of being a small company; it’s also because we want to make sure we keep looking after the birds in the same, traditional way we always have.”
What’s differerent?
>>Colour, quality, taste - and price
Clarence Court’s eggs aren’t just pretty: they are better quality than the eggs mass-produced by modern hybrid hens, claims Philip Lee-Woolf. He says other birds are bred for productivity rather than quality.
“Our eggs are several grams heavier than hybrids. That’s to do with the density of the albumen, the large size of the yolk and the thickness of the shell. When you break them on to a plate, our eggs hold their shape. They also taste much better.”
They cost £1.45 a half dozen in Tesco, compared with 88p for standard free range medium eggs. Hybrid birds lay 350 eggs a year, nearly double that of Old Cotswold Legbar and Burford Browns, accounting for much of the premium.
Next time you have a dinner party, don’t be surprised if one of your guests brings you something a little out of the ordinary. Philip Lee-Woolf, founder of Clarence Court, says that people often give their hosts half a dozen of his company’s striking blue (yes, blue) eggs instead of a bottle of wine.
Their puzzled looks soon give way to amazement, he claims, as yet another follower is recruited to the cause.
To say it’s his company isn’t strictly true. A year and a half ago, he sold Clarence Court to Cornish egg packer Clifford Kent - but it’s almost as if he hadn’t. He remains officially an adviser and consultant but, in reality, he is the company’s soul and public face.
Lee-Woolf built Clarence Court from scratch in 1990 when, sick of making chairs for a living, he bought a farm in the Worcestershire market town of Broadway and a flock of 100 pure-breed laying hens.
Over the years, he developed his own breeds of slow-growing, free-range hens, firstly the Old Cotswold Legbar, which lays the aforementioned blue eggs, and later the Burford Brown, which produces eggs swathed in a cloak of rich, chocolate brown.
Then, in 1999, after nearly a decade supplying modest volumes to Harrods, Fortnum & Mason and Harvey Nichols, he took the risk of investing in a much larger flock and approaching the supermarkets.
“The eggs were going like wildfire; I was gripped by it,” he recalls. “I thought, ‘I’ve got something here that everybody seems to want but nobody else seems to be doing’.”
Tesco was the first supermarket visited by Lee-Woolf, arms full of Old Cotswold Legbar eggs. But they knocked him back. “They said nobody would buy blue eggs.”
Waitrose, however, snapped them up. As luck would have it, says Lee-Woolf: “Waitrose was starting to look for something different in eggs. Probably, if I’d gone to them a year before, they wouldn’t have gone for it.”
Six months later, Tesco came on the phone: they wanted the eggs after all. Sainsbury followed, then Safeway.
The eggs are coming out of Safeway following Morrisons’ takeover, though a new deal with Somerfield has softened the blow.
The multiples now buy 90% of the 360,000 eggs Clarence Court produces each week and the eggs are available in supermarkets nationwide. Many supermarkets also stock Clarence Court’s duck and quail eggs.
So if the garden is so rosy, why did Lee-Woolf sell up? In the end, it was a pragmatic decision. Clarence Court’s packing facilities on Coach House Farm were at full stretch. “It got to the point when we knew we would have to spend a lot of money on the packing room,” he says.
“We needed to take a major step forward and this is where Clifford Kent came in. Michael Kent, who runs it, is a forward thinking, imaginative chap. He’s also got a big, brilliant new packing machine.”
Lee-Woolf now runs a hatchery from his farm for Clarence Court, ensuring farmers who produce eggs for the company - and 150 have been contracted to do so - have the finest birds to work with.
But perhaps his most important task is to make sure the company doesn’t become so successful that it loses its way. Turnover is expected to increase from £1.3m last year to about £2m this year. And sales are forecast to double again in the next two years.
Lee-Woolf admits: “It’s difficult because we’re quite big now. And it’s not just that we are trying to maintain our image of being a small company; it’s also because we want to make sure we keep looking after the birds in the same, traditional way we always have.”
What’s differerent?
>>Colour, quality, taste - and price
Clarence Court’s eggs aren’t just pretty: they are better quality than the eggs mass-produced by modern hybrid hens, claims Philip Lee-Woolf. He says other birds are bred for productivity rather than quality.
“Our eggs are several grams heavier than hybrids. That’s to do with the density of the albumen, the large size of the yolk and the thickness of the shell. When you break them on to a plate, our eggs hold their shape. They also taste much better.”
They cost £1.45 a half dozen in Tesco, compared with 88p for standard free range medium eggs. Hybrid birds lay 350 eggs a year, nearly double that of Old Cotswold Legbar and Burford Browns, accounting for much of the premium.
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