David Brass

CEO, The Lakes Free Range Egg Co Ltd

Born and raised on a small family Lake District Dairy, beef and sheep farm, David graduated BSc Hons in Agriculture, Newcastle 1980.

He joined the RAF and was in the Royal Air Force for 10years where the day job was a Harrier pilot, before retiring back to the family farm in late 1989, which he and his wife Helen took over.

The farm has grown from 200 chickens and in 1996, David and Helen set up Lakes Free Range Egg Co Ltd to sell their eggs.

The ethos even way back in 1996 was ‘to sustainably supply only Free Range and Organic Free Range eggs produced to high welfare standards, top 10% of UK performance and leading edge innovation’.

There has been a constant stream of innovation and research in partnership with some of the UK’s leading research institutions.

The business has now grown to several egg-producing farming businesses, a pullet rearing operation rearing well over one million birds per year and the Lakes Free Range Egg Co Ltd which now turns over £100 million and packs half a billion eggs per year from contracted producers across the midlands northwards, including to Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Currently, for a relatively small company, we have several PhD researchers seconded on major research programmes into all aspects of chicken behaviour, innovation, nutrition and welfare.

David will be presenting alongside Carly Brass on the FLOCKWISE project Lakes Free Range Egg Co Ltd have been undertaking in collaboration with FAI Farms.