Facing stiff competition with entries from Scotland, Australia, Canada, Japan and South Korea, David Wagstaff, Noble’s Chief Operating Officer, outlined how the company had researched worldwide opportunities for the established UK brand. In the UK Happy Egg is the number one brand with sales of over £80m.

The USA market, albeit often difficult to break into with new European products, was regarded as offering the best opportunity of all overseas markets – 95 per cent of production was caged, there was very low free range penetration, the market lacked brands and terminology and the offering in store was generally regarded as confused and bland.

Further, US sales of enhanced welfare eggs had grown 15 per cent since 2008. Research carried out by Noble included locating what areas of the country offered the best climate for Happy Hens.

With the mission of making free range eggs available to everybody at an affordable price the company set about raising awareness amongst the American consumer. Key to awareness and providing consumers with informed choices was a social media campaign.

Research and focus groups helped the company to shape the strategy and unique packaging was imported from Europe. Since January 2014 the brand has attracted 21,000 followers on Facebook and national radio advertising has reached out to 60 million people.

The range of eggs and package sizes has expanded to meet the dynamic market and includes 4 box packs, organic and jumbo. Using marketing campaigns with headlines 'The best eggs under the sun' and 'Better eggs... naturally' the product, launched in October 2013, has seen sales of $10m in 2014 with a brand value target of $50m by 2017.

The IEC judges, acknowledging the very high quality of all the presentations, described the achievement and success of Happy Eggs in the USA as ‘outstanding’.