New automation system reduces food waste and water use for quail egg producer
By Lilian Schaer for Bioenterprise Canada
One of North America’s largest quail egg farms has installed new robotic technology that is reducing food loss and water use while making its operations more efficient.
Spring Creek Quail Farm, near Saint Anns in the Niagara Region, was able to bring its system on line with support from the FoodShift program, delivered by Bioenterprise Canada. Funded the Government of Canada through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario), FoodShift offers up to $50,000 in matching funding to help food and beverage processors adopt clean technologies.
Quail eggs are still somewhat of a niche product, but their popularity is on the rise, with the farm shipping millions of fresh eggs to supermarkets across North America every week. This includes Canadian retailers like Sobeys, Costco, Walmart, Food Basics, and Loblaws.
That growing demand is driven by food lovers captivated by the eggs’ taste, health-conscious consumers who value their nutritional benefits, and new Canadians who appreciate a familiar ingredient they know from home. Quail eggs have the same flavour profile as chicken eggs but are high in Vitamin B2 and iron, and extremely high in HDL or “good” cholesterol.
Spring Creek Quail Farm has been in the quail business since 2002, with Aaron Oosterhoff and his wife, Lyndsay, becoming the second-generation owners in 2018.
Sustainability and a commitment to stewardship drive the family business, which includes a strong focus on animal health and welfare, as well as zero-waste production. The farm uses 100 percent recyclable packaging and shipping materials, and its organic waste is re-used as compost on a nearby vegetable farm.
“Our goal is to make quail eggs accessible across North America as an alternative egg choice, and we focus on making everything we do part of the regular life cycle or 100 percent recyclable,” says Aaron Oosterhoff. “We have a proprietary grading system for our eggs and a unique packaging design, so we wanted to make the whole process more efficient.”
With FoodShift funding, the company was able to install a robotic egg collection system that not only increased the speed at which eggs could be collected, graded and packaged, but also reduced wasted material, generated emissions and water use for equipment cleaning.
“Overall, this system has led to an 18 percent decrease in waste product overall and a 30 percent increase in efficiency in terms of labour per egg packaged,” he explains. “We’ve increased the capacity of each employee so that we can do more with the same workforce, and we’ve also opened up a lot of new doors in terms of our capacity to fill the needs of new markets, which has resulted in creating two additional jobs.”
The funding helped accelerate the implementation of the new system, moving the entire process ahead by more than six months. This past year, Spring Creek also became the first quail egg farm in North America to become humane certified, getting their certification through Facta LLC. Looking forward, the company wants to further automate its egg processing line to include tasks like boxing and palletizing, as well as adding value-added products like hard-boiled or pickled eggs.
“We are very thankful for the FoodShift project funding. It has really helped us move forward and I can’t say enough about how helpful the Bioenterprise team has been,” says Oosterhoff.
Bioenterprise is Canada’s Food & Agri-Tech Engine, a national agri-technology focused commercialization accelerator. Bioenterprise uses its more than 20 years of industry experience and a global network of experts, mentors, funders, researchers, and industry partners to help small and medium-sized agri-food businesses connect, innovate and grow. Learn more.
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