Durham's Lintz Farm rules the roost

Brothers Richard and Stephen Tulip, who run Durham’s Lintz Farm, are celebrating after scooping a top agricultural award.

The siblings were last night [October 3] jointly crowned Poultry Farmer of the Year 2013 at the prestigious Farmers’ Weekly Awards.

Regarded as the Oscars of the agricultural world, the competition now in its ninth year aims to recognise and reward farmers for their innovation, commitment and hard work and to honour the industry’s unsung heroes.

The pair picked up their accolade sponsored by Aldi at a glittering ceremony hosted by BBC news anchor Kate Silverton at the Grosvenor Park Hotel in London’s Park Lane.

It is the first time that Lintz Hall Farm had entered the national awards.

Richard and Stephen’s success has been made all the sweeter because not only is the egg business based at Burnopfield, County Durham, celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, but the pair were nominated for the accolade by other poultry industry stalwarts.

Richard, 37, who is the firm’s sales and marketing director, and Stephen, 40, who is production director, are celebrating their win by jetting off today on a joint family holiday.

But a delighted Richard said from the airport: “We are surprised and very humbled to have won the award. It is an amazing honour and we want to thank all our family, friends and staff without whom none of this would have been possible.

“From small beginnings 60 years ago the Tulip family has steadily grown Lintz Hall Farm, maintaining a local base of loyal customers whilst adding bigger accounts, including Asda, Morrisons, Tesco, Nisa and Costcutter who we supply across the North East, Borders and South East Scotland, as well as scores of independent outlets with our Lintz Hall, Derwent Valley, Oxenrig and Sunny Hill egg brands.

“For most of the year we get on with what we do best: managing our flock of nearly 300,000 hens, producing and packing on site the best quality eggs and keeping our many customers happy.

“Win or lose it was fantastic just to have been nominated, but it’s great for Stephen and I, the rest of our family and our staff to get this sort of recognition from within our own industry of our exceptionally high standards of product, presentation and service.”

Lintz Hall Farm was up against two other egg producers from West Sussex and Aberystwyth in Wales in its category.

There were 15 Farmers’ Weekly awards in total covering a range of areas from pig to beef, sheep, dairy and arable farmers of the year.

Lintz Hall Farm, which stands on a hill overlooking the Derwent Valley, employs 41 staff and is RSPCA Freedom Food and British Lion Code-approved.

It has its genesis with Richard and Stephen’s great grandfather and their own parents, George and Maureen, are still involved.

In recent years the Tulip family has taken every opportunity to grow the business, including the acquisition 13 months ago of Northumberland-based Sunny Hill Free Range Eggs, which included the Oxenrig brand.

Richard said: “Even though Lintz Hall has grown dramatically in size we have never compromised. Welfare and good husbandry are essential to what we do and the result is the high quality eggs we produce and the many satisfied customers we have.

“Now we have won the Poultry Farmer of the Year award it will help us promote our business even more and hopefully open doors for us that might otherwise have remained closed.

“Previous winners and their staff have benefitted greatly from the publicity and the feel-good factor.”