Radlo Foods

Source: Food and Drink Digital

Date :17/09/2007 06:20:44

The egg entrepreneur

Subhead: At age 91, Radlo Foods is one of the oldest, and most innovative egg producers in the country. But this is one family affair that isn’t content to rest on its laurels

Written by James Buchanan and produced Michael Magno

It used to be that our morning eggs either came from the chicken coop out back or from a local farm.

But things have sure changed, as eggs are now big business.

For example, more than 50 billion eggs are distributed through stores each year in the U.S., with some egg farmers managing to collect nearly a million of the small, oblong orbs each day.

Further, eggs represent a fairly dynamic industry where change comes often, and comes fast.

Of late, says Dave Radlo, president and CEO of Radlo Foods — a New England-based egg supplier with production throughout the Northeast and Midwest — customers are looking for healthier eggs that come from chickens raised under humane standards. This means organic eggs, eggs with omega-3 fatty acids, eggs from vegetarian fed chickens and eggs from cage free chickens.

All of which, his company has played a leading role in bringing to the customer, Radlo says.

“We are excited that customers continually want to have better and better products,” says Radlo. “We’re driven to — from the farm to the table — produce, process, distribute, and, if necessary, export these outstanding products.”

He goes on to add, “We are a proud Eggland’s Best franchisee and owner, and have pioneered the cage free and organic concept. On top of that, we are a proud producer and marketer of Born Free eggs, which is the finest food safety program in the nation. And we are also very proud of our premium private label varieties that we produce for our partners.”

For 91 years Radlo Foods has called Watertown, Mass., its home, and is very likely one of the region’s oldest egg producers and distributors. Initially the company was known as Radlo Brothers, and marketed its products in Boston near the Faneuil Hall Marketplace. Deliveries were made with a horse drawn cart.

“We have predominantly, since 1916, been New England-based, selling brown eggs fresh from New England.” says Radlo. “My grandfather was in the egg business with his family, my father came in after World War II, and I jumped in approximately 18 or 20 years ago.”

He goes on to add, “My dad was a pioneer, he is still president of the New England Brown Egg Council, and he was also a pioneering force in getting our eggs into Puerto Rico first and also Hong Kong and even Cuba.”

This same pioneering spirit is still a big part of the company’s work ethic, as Radlo says the company always seeks to be an innovative force within the industry, whether that is seeking markets overseas or finding new products such as cage free eggs to bring to customers.

“We are looking to bring new value added products and drive the marketplace,” he says. “There are innovators and people that break into markets, and then there are people that are adaptors and followers. We are an innovator and we are an extremely successful innovator.”

Radlo’s comments are backed up by the recent financial gains of the company. He says that total company growth last year was 72 percent, with 135 percent to 140 percent growth in the company’s premium egg lines — such as the omega-3 and organic eggs. He adds that over the last five years the company has averaged 25 percent to 30 percent growth annually.

“That success [is achieved] through innovation,” says Radlo. “It is taking a look at segments of the market and asking, ‘What do people want?’ They want organic eggs. They want some omega-3 eggs. They want cage free certified humane eggs. They want vegetarian fed eggs. Tthey want eggs in eighteen packs. They want jumbo eggs, extra large eggs; and now they want them already hardboiled and ready to cut up and put in their salad.”

In order to bring so many eggs within so many market segments to consumers, Radlo says the company takes a rather unique strategy.

“We go after the chickens,” says Radlo. “We want to own the chickens. We want to own the eggs. And we either own or lease the facilities, or we work with partnership arrangements at selected facilities.”

He goes on to add that the company has approximately 2.1 million caged birds that are certified for safety and quality by the United Egg Producers — an industry association —and nearly 500,000 cage free certified birds. Further, all of the company’s layers are housed on farms in Maine, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Iowa.

“The way everything is going sustainable and cage free and organic, you are seeing a decentralization of farms,” says Radlo. “For example, we’ve got 2.1 million birds in three complexes in a tight-nit area. And then you have — with the cage free and organic operations — a grading station, and then you have 20,000 birds over here in this town and then 40,000 over here in this town, all being worked on by local families. On the one hand is CAFO farming, Concentrated Animal Feedlot Operations; while on the other is a family farm model.”

The company produces only brown eggs, which are an egg type that Radlo says were first brought to New England on the Yankee Clipper ships of the early 1800s, which traveled the world carrying passengers and trade items.

“Before, people would say, it’s these crazy people up in New England where they eat these brown eggs, because there was a backlog from these Yankee Clipper ships,” he says. “Now, I’ll travel around the Midwest, in Indiana, and they say, you know these guys in New England had a pretty good idea marketing these brown eggs as local eggs and local eggs are fresh.

“Now you’ll see brown eggs in cage free, and some in organic, from coast-to-coast, and it is a pretty recent phenomenon that the brown egg is the best, the highest quality premium egg in the industry, and our company has helped grow the brown egg as being the premium egg coast-to-coast,” he says.

To be able to take something that is rather ordinary — to most people an egg is an egg — and turn it into something rather extraordinary requires a commitment to innovation and marketing. For Radlo, this means his company must be able to create its own possibilities.

“You have to create the packaging. You have to see the trend in consumers and be able to pick the product, the packaging, the messaging, and sell it to the retailer and sell it to the consumer,” he says. “It is also being able to back that up with sound production and production practices in order to be able to fill the orders and guarantee the quality.”

On this latter point Radlo says his company has been able to maintain an order fulfillment rate that is higher than 99 percent.

“With the Born Free safety action plan we have a very good quality assurance program,” he says. “We are running with only 2 to 3 percent with cracks where the industry standard is 5 percent. We are working with laser etching and testing for salmonella. You have got to take care of your customer. Our goal is to have a product advantage, a marketing advantage and a total competitive advantage.”

Radlo is particularly excited by the laser etching technology the company is bringing into its operations. Essentially, data related to each egg is etched on the side of the shell with a laser in such a way that it is readable without harming the shell.

“Laser etching is the most fascinating piece of technology,” he says. “It is capable of storing data on everything from the farm conditions, to the packing weight, to the house it came from, to vaccination information — it’s just limitless. The consumer can purchase an egg and crack it open, and if it isn’t right, they can go call the store and read off that code to the manager and learn everything there is to know about that egg.”

The laser technology is produced by EggFusion of Deerfield, Ill., and is the only FDA approved solution for applying permanent and tamperproof freshness and traceability codes on the shell of an egg.

Laser etching is also just one piece of the Born Free egg safety action plan, which is a comprehensive system for assuring the safety of all eggs throughout the entire process of gathering eggs and bringing them to store shelves. Beyond the etching program, Radlo ensures all of its chickens are vaccinated, flocks are routinely tested, lower crack percentages are sought, and packaging is made of clear plastic so the contents can be seen.

“What we said is, where is the FDA going to be in five years; and so why don’t we just do it now,” says Radlo. “Why do we have to wait for the FDA to come out with new laws, we’ll just do it on our own. We’ll be different and we’ll have an advantage. We would beat everybody to it and be operating on what is to come.”

With these safety efforts, Radlo says he is glad there are standards in place to not only ensure humane treatment of livestock, but also to clearly delineate what it means for an animal to be raised and kept cage free. As to the former point, he gives credit to the United Egg Producers for taking the lead by being the first commodity group to set animal welfare standards.

As to the latter, he credits Humane Farm Animal Care (HFAC) for setting cage free standards that are strong, yet practical.

The HFAC is an organization dedicated providing and monitoring standards for humane food production. According to its website, farms receiving its certification must show that livestock have access to clean and sufficient food and water; that their environment is not dangerous to their health; that they have sufficient protection from the weather; that they have sufficient space for them to move naturally; and other features to ensure the safety, health, and comfort of the animals.

“For them to say, ‘Okay, there is an acceptable level of practices that even we would think is okay,’ I give them credit for saying what certified humane means,” says Radlo.

Beyond ensuring that the chickens live in humane conditions, Radlo says there is an ever present challenge to keeping his layers laying.

“The challenge and reality in our industry is that the chickens every week are different,” he says. “They have different humidity conditions; you have different ages, and more; and as a result the chickens will lay fewer eggs, more eggs, bigger eggs, smaller eggs; the weather changes and you may have a speck of something; and it is also a perishable commodity, so you are also dealing with bio-security issues. You’ve got to keep them inside because you don’t want them to get avian influenza. So in production you have all these programs that are done to ensure the quality of the product so they are good enough to get them out and to the stores.”

Looking to the future, Radlo says the company will continue to be ceaselessly innovative and have new products in the pipeline. He also says the company will continue to grow its distribution and use its innovative instincts to grow its market share by creating products that consumers want.

“Hand in hand with the business goes the growth of the chickens and the farms, and those will continue to grow as the business determines that our production needs to grow,” says Radlo.

But this does not come without its challenges.

“Say you want 50,000 more chickens,” says Radlo. “There is a 39-week period until they start laying eggs, so there is a long lead time. Plus you have to make sure that you have enough for every day. Do you have too many chickens producing, not enough, enough, but only for today and the company will need even more in a few weeks?”

Corn prices have also shot through the roof in the past year due to increased production of ethanol, which is blended with gasoline. Radlo was one of the last in line to go up with its prices hoping things would self correct through increased corn harvests.

“It goes to my belief that you take care of the customer and you see things from their side,” says Radlo. “You let it ride and see if the market is going to correct. If the market is going to correct, don’t cry that the sky is falling. But if you’ve got a problem be direct with the customer, ‘We can’t do it anymore.’”