Better Eggs - Welfare & Sustainability

Freestyle
chickens

Henergy was the first brand in New Zealand to be granted SPCA certification for eggs. Better Eggs® Free Range is now, of course, also SPCA certified. It’s easy to see why.
The hens’ range is more than field or yard. Much more.

It’s a gosh darn forest. With trees and stumps and rock formations and sun and sky and air.

Every morning, the chickens, quite noisily and eggcitedly, make their own way outside to spend the day eggsploring this environment; they’re practically wild.

The hens then sleep and lay in their barn once they’ve returned from the great outdoors. A comfortable warm and dry place for them to call home, if they could talk.

There are more than one hundred thousand trees, many of them specifically planted to allow natural light for grass cover. Leaves falling to the ground enrich the soil and stimulate worm and bug action. Because do you know what chickens love? That’s right: foraging. They could do it all day. Actually, they do.

Back inside, the barn is naturally ventilated rather than mechanically, using way less electricity. It also creates natural light in the barn. So the outside is inside too.

The chickens are happier making their eggs Better Eggs®.

NOTHING TO HIDE HERE •

What makes us
Better Eggs®?

Better environment

Rocky outcrops, trees providing shade and shelter, lots of space, lots to do. Our hens are enriched and entertained in an ideal henvironment resembling the jungle they evolved from. It’s hen heaven.

Better feed

Depending on their age and what they need nutritionally to produce Better Eggs® our hens have their own blends created, by us, in our own mill, to our own recipe.

Better sheds

Better light, temperature and dust management, unrestricted access to the outdoors when the continuous pop holes are open, curtains and atrium-style ceilings for more space. If a chicken designed a shed, it would design this.

Better biosecurity

Hen health matters. So our protocols around the farm are super strict. We implement practices like appropriate PPE, washing the wheels of vehicles before they come on the farm and changing footwear between sheds. We take biosecurity very, very seriously.

Better systems

We want our people looking after our hens, so for tasks like egg collection and packing, ventilation and monitoring all aspects of the barn environment, we’re fully automated. That’s right: we have robots.

Better packaging

Our packaging is made from recycled materials and can be recycled again. We’re on a journey to reduce plastic in our business, including getting rid of shrink-wrapped trays. It’s better for everybody.

Better plans

Local maize supply reduces our carbon footprint. Solar power is on the cards. Our passenger fleet is transitioning to hybrid vehicles. Natural light in the sheds reduces electricity use.

Better at being better

We love learning, often taking inspiration from overseas and even other industries. Not content with standing still, we know we can always be getting better at everything we do. That’s what we mean by champions for better®.

Better spirit

At the core of this business is family. We’ve changed and evolved but family values run deep. It’s just who we are.

Better futures

Generations before us created a leggacy to build on. Today we’re committed to the continuation of that leggacy for the generations that follow. Everything we do considers what’s yet to come.

Freestyle chickens

What makes us Better Eggs®?