Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

Two years ago, when 10 acres of dessert apple trees came to the end of their productive life at Austin Farm near Wisbech, Sue and Fred Leach decided to grub them up and register the land for organic purposes.

Following free advice from Elm Farm Research Centre, they signed up as contract producers with Rob Morton, who specialises in organic production through his Norfolk company, Morton’s Traditional Taste Ltd.

“Organic chickens suited our scale and we like the idea of an enterprise offering a quicker, more regular return without so many weather-related problems,” said Sue Leach.

An existing general store was converted to a brooder house to rear day-old chicks at a cost of about £10,000. After four weeks in the brooder house, the birds are moved outside where they have access to the land, divided into three paddocks to allow rotation and resting according to organic rules.

Some 21,000 birds will be produced a year and marketed via a poultry company, to supermarkets, which now handle about 74 per cent of total organic retail sales.

With 60 per cent of organic chickens still imported - mostly from France - Rob Morton says there is enormous scope to increase UK production and he is looking for more contract producers to meet the demand.