Belford-based free range egg producer, Sunny Hill Free Range Eggs, and Tyne Valley egg producer, Lintz Hall Farm, are merging to allow each to concentrate on their individual strengths.

The merger will take place in early September and allows Sunny Hill Free Range Eggs to focus on bird welfare and egg production at the Jackson Family Farm, Detchant, near Belford, while also benefitting from the 60 years’ experience the Tulip Family at Lintz Hall Farm have in production, marketing and distribution.

The familiar brands that have developed such customer loyalty over the years for both families will remain.

Catherine Armstrong, who runs Sunny Hill Free Range Eggs along with her parents Robert and Brenda Jackson, commented on how the new partnership will be enormously beneficial to both businesses and their customers: “In future, distribution and marketing will be completed by Lintz Hall Farm. This allows us to fully focus on looking after our birds. Production and bird welfare is our passion and key strength, and this partnership enables us to concentrate on this.”

Lintz Hall Farm and Sunny Hill Free Range Eggs are both family-run farming businesses. The Tulip family based at Lintz Hall Farm are the oldest producers of eggs in the North East of England – having been in the business for 60 years. The Tulip family started producing eggs in conjunction with local councils during the Second World War to help feed the region’s population and brothers Stephen and Richard Tulip, who run the business, together with their parents George and Maureen, are now the fourth generation to continue the family tradition.

The customers of Sunny Hill Farm Free Range eggs have been key to the success of the company and Catherine is enormously grateful to them. “I would like to thank all our customers for their support and loyalty – and I assure them that when they purchase Sunny Hill and Oxenrig Free Range Eggs, they will continue to receive our locally produced free range eggs together with the excellent service, for which our brands are renowned.”

“The great advantages for both our business and our customers which we will see, will be thanks to Lintz Hall Farm’s expertise in distribution and marketing and through their growing reputation as a producer committed to environmental efficiency, and welfare. During the last few years a large investment has been made at both Sunny Hill Free Range Eggs and Lintz Hall Farm to ensure that we can continue to provide the quality local produce and service that our customers have become accustomed to”.

Richard Tulip at Lintz Hall Farm commented on teaming up with an already well reputed egg producer: “Like Sunny Hill Free Range Eggs, we are a farming family and we share many of the same principles. We pride ourselves on providing top quality locally produced eggs with a personal local service that our customers know they can rely on. This merger, together with our new state of the art packing and distribution centre ensures that both Lintz Hall Farm and Sunny Hill Free Range Eggs will continue to produce and supply local fresh eggs for many years to come.”

Sunny Hill Free Range Eggs has had a very strong market mix with 80% of the eggs being sold in the North East of England and Southern Scotland in greengrocers, delicatessens, farm shops and selected branches of Asda, Morrisons and Tesco. This includes some of the area’s foremost restaurants and independent grocery stores, including Fenwick’s of Newcastle, Edinburgh University and the internationally renowned Seaham Hall Hotel in Durham.