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A revolution in egg production

Long established Morwell family business Lyndale Poultry Farm has completely revolutionized their egg handling systems.

By Latrobe Shire Council - 10th August 2004 - Back to News

The company recently installed a modern, computerized in-line egg grader and packaging plant capable of handling up to 50,000 eggs per hour.

A conveyer belt system collects eggs from three sheds and takes them to the grader where they are graded as either 600, 700 or 800 grams in size. The eggs are then packed into cartons, boxed, and placed onto pallets ready for delivery.

"The in-line egg grader ensures that each egg finds its way from the hen to the coolroom before final despatch without necessarily being handled by any of our employees. However, our operators are trained to remain vigilant, watching over the new infrastructure and checking that the system functions correctly with minimal downtime," explained Lyndale Poultry Farm co-owner, Gil Powter.

At the packaging plant each egg travels from its source and is gently placed in a line, with minimal breakage, as it passes under a high intensity ultra-violet radiation machine that provides sterilization for the egg shell to guard against salmonella. "This machine is the only one of its type in Australia and is 99.8% accurate," Gil explained.

At this point, eggs are detected for cracks and the 0.85 percent of eggs that are shown to be cracked are collected for egg pulp manufacture, another Lyndale venture that produces over 14,000 litres of egg pulp per week.

The eggs are then whisked away by a fast spinning set of ‘mechanical fingers’ that delicately sends each separate egg to be packed into cartons after being lightly coated with a drop of vegetable oil to enhance shelf life. Cartons are then packed into boxes that are sealed by a computer driven, air operated automatic sealing machine, ready for dispatch. Most of the eggs are distributed across Victoria and deliveries have recently commenced to interstate markets.

"At present, we are grading and packing 40,000 eggs per hour over an eight hour day, five days a week, which means 1.6 million eggs per week," Gil added.

Fellow co-owner, Laurie Powter, said that Lyndale Poultry Farm’s new investment is running smoothly and working well beyond expectations.

"Our new purpose built air conditioned facility and new laying shed, which is almost completed, makes us one of Victoria’s largest egg producers. Nine employees are required to work in conjunction with the in-line process and soon we will have eggs being sent by conveyor from four sheds for grading and packing," Laurie explained.

Latrobe City’s Leo Billington said that Lyndale Poultry Farm has long been a recognized leader in the Victorian egg industry and now stands out across Australia as an excellent example of strategic planning in a highly competitive industry.

Source: www.gippsland.com

Published by: news@gippsland.com

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