Eggheads

Egg prices are sitting near all-time lows, and that's not because of weak demand, but because supply has outpaced it. Emily Metz, President and CEO of the American Egg Board, joins Greg to talk about how her organization is working to close that gap. Emily walks us through the AEB's strategy for getting people to consume more eggs, from changing their reputation as only a breakfast food, to gettin...

In-ovo sexing has the potential to end the practice of male chick culling — and the technology seems to have finally caught up to the ambition.  Greg hosted a panel on the topic at the Peak Conference, featuring Nancy Roulston, Senior Director of Corporate Policy and Animal Science at the ASPCA; Juliana Machado, Geneticist and Data Scientist at Hendrix Genetics; Casey Downey from Innovate Animal A...

In early 2025 HPAI outbreaks had egg prices sitting at record highs; just one year later they're hitting inflation-adjusted historic lows. And while that may be great for consumers looking for a cheap source of protein, it has a lot of US producers feeling the squeeze.  Joining us to discuss the issue is Brian Moscogiuri. Formerly of Urner Barry, and Eggs Unlimited, Brian recently launched a new v...

In 1985, Bernd Meerpohl watched his father take a risk in purchasing a struggling farm equipment company. That company was called Big Dutchman, and today it operates in 174 countries and generates around €1.5 billion in annual sales.  Bernd took over as CEO in 1992, and maintained the unwavering commitment to salesmanship, innovation, and emerging markets that's made Big Dutchman into the global b...

From the time you start to suspect you might have an HPAI outbreak on your farm, to getting lab confirmation, can take between 1 and 5 days. And while producers wait for those results to come back, they're forced to make extremely tough decisions — cancelling deliveries, isolating employees, culling entire flocks — based on incomplete information.  Erik Tyrrell-Knott is the President and Chief Bus...

Most people would figure that lighting a hen house is a question of screwing in some bulbs and turning them on. But as it turns out, the type of lighting you use can have a profound effect on birds, shaping their behavior, improving welfare, and driving production results. Max Obers is the CEO of HATO Lighting, a Netherlands-based company with over 50 years of history in agricultural lighting. Tod...

There are so many different types of egg-farmers: traditional caged operations, cage-free, free-range organic...the list goes on. But one organization strives to represent all of their interests, and advocate on their behalf at the highest levels of government.  Chad Gregory is the President and CEO of the United Egg Producers (UEP), an organization that represents over 90% of US egg farmers. The...

Bruce Dooyema's career in poultry began in the 7th grade, when his parents bought him a dozen chickens to raise in the backyard. Now, as Director of Strategic projects at Versova, he's responsible for around 40 million of them. And as if that wasn't enough responsibility, Bruce serves as President of the International Egg Foundation, where he helps establish layer operations in countries strugglin...

There are so many different ways to introduce contaminants during the egg production process: improperly used chemicals, dirty equipment, poor handling techniques, the list goes on. And it's the job of today's guests to develop and enforce the protocols that prevent all that from happening, which would be a tough enough gig for one facility, let alone 15.  Kim Rice is the VP of Food Safety and Qua...

Finding the right ventilation solution can be make or break for your layer operation. And especially now with the emergence of cage-free farming, making sure air is circulating evenly can be key in ensuring your chickens remain healthy and productive.  Craig Morley is in charge of sales at Aerotech, and Ross Demerly is their applications and sales engineering manager. Together they have a combined...

Sometimes people have this idea that farmers shouldn't use immigrant workers at all, and that there are enough people looking for work domestically to staff their operations. Today, we're getting into why that's often just simply not the case.  Kyle Farmer is the founder of Farmer Law PC where he's an attorney specializing in immigration law. He works with producers, and operators throughout the a...

The last few decades have seen an incredible amount of change in the egg industry. That's especially true of egg grading, where we've gone from machines that can process 200 cases per hour, to systems that can do 800. And where advances in vision automation mean we no longer need people on the line manually inspecting eggs for dirt or cracks.  Craig England was formerly the President of Sanovo Tec...

In four generations, the Braswell family has gone from selling animal feed to local farmers, to becoming one of the largest suppliers of organic feed and specialty eggs on the east coast. And now, Trey Braswell, the president and CEO of Braswell Family Farms, is focused on continuing that incredible legacy.  Trey joins us today to walk us through the history of the company, to take us inside their...

The Weaver family has been in the specialty egg game for a long time, and they've seen incredible success with their brand, Westfield Egg Farm. A big reason for that success has been their continued willingness to innovate, including a unique model that holds their contract farmers to extremely high standards, but also gives them the autonomy to run their operations as they see fit.  Our guest tod...

What a year it's been for Eggheads. We've featured so many new voices and interesting perspectives from throughout the egg world, and gained a whole bunch of new listeners along the way.  Today, Greg shares his thoughts on all of the people and issues we've highlighted in 2025, and what you can expect from the show as we move into 2026.  Happy New Year! 

Coke Anderson has had one of the most storied careers of anyone in the egg business. She started with a 30,000-bird flock, which would eventually grow into M&C Anderson pullets, a 1700-acre farm that rears nearly 5 million pullets annually. She would also become the first woman to lead the American Egg Board, and helped the organization navigate through some turbulent times.  Today, Coke joins...

Today, we're returning to our special scramble format and welcoming to the show three legends of the egg industry. We have Mark Kleinsmith, formerly the National Sales and Marketing Manager for Lubing USA, Steve Kuykendall, formerly a Regional Manager for Lubing USA, and Craig England, who spent decades working on the breaker and grader side of the industry.  These three old friends have a combine...

'In-ovo' sexing, or determining the sex of an egg before it hatches, has long been seen as a potential solution to the problem of male chick culling at hatcheries. Methods of in-ovo sexing have historically been invasive and difficult to apply at scale, but today we're spotlighting a company with some revolutionary tech that could change that.  Jennifer Volz is the Head of Global Business Developm...

Steve DeWeerdt, and his parents before him, grew the DeWeerdt poultry farm from a small family business into a massive egg production and processing operation. But when Michigan passed a law mandating that all egg producers in the state go cage-free, Steve was faced with a choice: adapt or close up shop.  Ultimately, Steve decided to make the transition, and today he takes us through that long pro...

Unfortunately, not all eggs that get produced make it onto supermarket shelves. Producers try to sort out eggs that are broken or misshapen, hatcheries discard infertile eggs, and breaker operations need to deal with broken yolks or excess fluid left in shells. So what happens to that stream of waste egg products that still have nutritional value, but are deemed to be unfit for human consumption? ...

After nearly a year and a half of hearing his voice on Eggheads, we figured you might be curious about who Greg is and why in the world he decided to start a podcast about the egg industry. Well today, we hope to give you some insight, by flipping the script and putting Greg in the guest's seat.  Stepping in as host for the day is Dr. Kay Russo. Kay's always been willing to lend us her scientific...

At only 25 years old, Cole Luthman is the Lead Service Technician at Cooper Farms, responsible for overseeing five out of their 8-million total birds. And as if that wasn't keeping him busy enough, Cole recently decided to start his own barn and become a contract grower himself.  Cole's journey into the poultry world started at 13, when he began working with one of Cooper's contract growers. Since...

Logan Webster has worn many hats in his life: he grew up on a broiler farm in South Arkansas, he worked in PR for Tyson Foods, he interned for a US Senator in Washington, and now, he's an entrepreneur working on an app that could prove to be an indispensable resource for growers everywhere.  We've talked a lot about the broiler industry on this show, but for the first time we're featuring a voice...

Besco Structures is one of the leading suppliers of pre-fabricated steel structures for agriculture. And since they started in the 80's, their director, Mark Doyle, has had the opportunity to observe poultry operations across the globe, from South America to Sub-Saharan Africa.  His many travels have given Mark a repository of amazing stories that you wouldn't necessarily expect from your typical...

On this show we've talked a lot about the debate around vaccinating birds against highly pathogenic avian influenza, and the opposing views on the issue within the egg and broiler industries. For clues on how to break that deadlock, we looked to a country that experienced very similar pushback when they first started talking about vaccinating their own birds, but still managed to make it work.  Ch...