Carb counters give Trilby farm a break

An incredible, edible egg comeback has followed the disaster of Cypress Foods, thanks largely to the Atkins phenomenon.

By CHASE SQUIRES
Published July 11, 2004

	[Times photo: Dan McDuffie]
	Wilton Simpson, whose family had sold the farm to James Biggers, bought it back after it collapsed. He has invested $10-million in the operation, which has 750,000 hens and 250,000 on the way.

TRILBY - It isn't the mythical Phoenix rising from the ashes along Trilby Road; it's chickens. For Wilton Simpson, that's just fine.

Simpson, a lifelong Trilby resident, grew up in the egg business. But in 1996 his family sold its egg farm and henhouses at the corner of U.S. 98 and Trilby Road to farmer James Biggers and his company, Cypress Foods.

In 2002, disastrously low egg prices wiped out Biggers and left 200,000 chickens at the farm to starve or be put to death. A criminal investigation cleared Biggers of wrongdoing, but the farm was shut down.

A year later, Simpson, 37, bought back the farm, determined to make it work again.

Then came the Atkins diet craze, and egg prices and demand jumped.

With $10-million invested (most of it in business loans), 750,000 birds laying eggs and another 250,000 ready when two new henhouses open in the fall, the Simpson Farms-Tampa Farms site is bustling with birds, eggs and, most important, Simpson said, employees, providing 40 jobs in rural Trilby.

In an industry famous for wild bust and boom cycles, times are good right now.

"The Atkins thing is one of those things that just happens," Simpson said. "Kind of the like the cholesterol scare in the 1980s. There's no in between, it's boom or it's bust."

One way to protect the farm against fluctuating prices is to spread the risk, Simpson said.

Rather than being responsible for maintaining the property, building the facilities, keeping machinery running, feeding birds and selling the eggs, Simpson's farm lets another business, Tampa Farms, do the sales and delivery.

Tampa Farms provides the chickens and contracts with Simpson to provide eggs. Simpson's team raises the birds to maturity, feeds them and collects the eggs. Once the eggs are produced in the agreed upon numbers, Tampa Farms deals with the sales, usually through contracts it has with buyers.

If the price of eggs collapses, Tampa Farms has to deal with the situation. If a hurricane rips the henhouses apart, that's Simpson's problem.

If everything works as it's supposed to, Tampa Farms has negotiated contracts that protect it against price fluctuations, and Simpson's facility produces eggs without concern about changes in demand.

Walking through the complex - a Rube Goldberg web of pipes, troughs, conveyor belts and rows and rows of chickens - Simpson said his success depends on keeping two groups happy: his neighbors and his chickens.

If a chicken operation generates flies, attracts rodents or emits a foul odor, neighbors and state or county health officials pressure the farmer. And if conditions inside aren't right, if the henhouse gets too hot or if water and food run out, the chickens' productivity suffers.

Keep both sides happy, and 1.5-million eggs a day continue to roll and bump along the belts into the processing house, where they are washed, examined for cracks, inspected, sorted, packed and stored. Within days, they end up on supermarket shelves or headed for cake mixes and other bakery products.

The facility's computers, feed and water supplies, and power generation are backed up by an identical system. Rows of computer and electric circuits crisscross operation centers. A massive diesel generator stands ready inside a concrete bunker to provide power for the feed, water and cooling system should the power supply fail. And in the event of a hurricane threat, Simpson said a tanker truck full of fuel would be standing by on the farm, in case the generator needed to run for days straight.

Inside the henhouses, rows of chickens in cages live under a reflective silver roof in aisles cooled by stacks of fans. Inside, the temperature is 10 to 15 degrees cooler than it is outside, despite the humid summer weather and the chickens' own body heat. Manure collects under the operation, where it is kept dry to reduce odor.

Unlike older chicken farms, visitors are not bowled over by the smell - another of what Simpson calls his keys to success. The biggest challenge, he said, is keeping the manure dry. In older farms, manure was washed out of the henhouses and the slurry was funneled into lagoons. For a modern farm in a county that is becoming increasingly suburban, that system is too smelly and too unsanitary to work anymore.

Simpson said he takes pride in his operation and the 40 jobs it provides. He said he's aware of criticism from animal rights activists, and some people's perception that farmers don't have much regard for their animals.

"That is a chicken athlete," he said pointing at a genetically engineered Hy-Line red hen. "There is this myth that farmers don't care about their animals. Farmers would not do anything that would harm their animals. Without the animals, we would not be in business. Dead chickens don't lay eggs."

[Last modified July 11, 2004, 01:00:43]