Getting Great Eggs by Letting Hens Act Like Hens With John Brunnquell, President, CEO, and Founder of Egg Innovations
John Brunnquell is the President, CEO, and Founder of Egg Innovations, the nation’s largest exclusive originator of 100% free-range and pasture-raised eggs. At age 53, he earned a PhD in avian ethology — the study of bird behavior. A third-generation farmer, John is on a mission to make the world a better place for chickens, people, and the planet. He pioneered Egg Innovations’ launch of the first regeneratively farmed specialty egg.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
John Brunnquell details his journey in the egg industry
How the acquisition of Peckish snack brand aligns with Egg Innovations’ mission
What does the building and expansion of John’s business look like?
Why customers should be willing to pay a premium for regenerative eggs
How Egg Innovations adopted a franchise business model
The two brands that egg buyers should look for
What effect has the war in Ukraine had on egg prices?
What you’ll learn in this episode:
Many processes contribute to creating high-quality food before it gets to your table. How can that be done through a holistic strategy that is environmentally friendly? Today’s guest dedicated his decades-long career to producing the best eggs through an approach that checks all the boxes — most that we take for granted.
As a third-generation farmer, John Brunnquell grew up in the farming business and initially believed caging birds was the easiest, most effective way to care for and raise chickens. Through extensive research, that’s all changed. Producing an egg may seem like a no-brainer, but what does it take to generate premium eggs? It starts with the hen and letting chickens behave like chickens — and eliminates the constraints of living a life in a cage. Chickens perch, they like to roam and explore and feed in pastures, and socialize — all contributing to their health, well-being, and a longer lifespan. When hens are allowed to behave in a natural way, they produce healthier, better-tasting eggs. Through an innovative regenerative farming approach, not only are the eggs high quality, but the entire production process is sustainable, ethical, and beneficial to the chickens and the planet.
On this episode of From Persona to Personal, Roger Hurni welcomes John Brunnquell, President, CEO, and Founder of Egg Innovations, for a conversation about how farmers can raise healthy chickens that lay healthy eggs. They discuss the effects of the pandemic on the egg industry, the immense value of regenerative agriculture to soil quality and raising healthy hens, how Egg Innovations implements a franchise business model, and the brands that carry their eggs. Don’t miss it!
Resources mentioned in this episode:
This episode’s sponsor:
Today’s episode is brought to you by Off Madison Ave. At Off Madison Ave, we create meaningful moments of brand trust and influence how people interact and engage with brands.
There is a science behind tapping into your audiences’ desires and motivation. After all, if you’re not changing your audiences’ behaviors, you can’t truly unlock all of your brand’s potential.
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Episode Transcript
Intro 0:02
This is From Persona to Personal podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by Off Madison Ave. Off Madison Ave creates meaningful moments of brand trust and influences how people interact and engage with brands. The science behind their approach taps into your audience's motivations and desires. After all, if you're not changing your audience's behaviors, you can't truly unlock all of your brand's potential. Now, let's get started with the show.
Roger Hurni 0:31
Hello, everyone, I am Roger Hurni, the host of From Persona to Personal where I get to speak with top leaders changing customer behaviors that they can propel their brands forward. Before I get to today's guest, this show is brought to you by Off Madison Ave. At Off Madison Ave, we use behavioral science to create meaningful moments of brand trust, which influences how people interact and engage with companies. Our behavioral approach taps into your audience's motivation and prompts them to shift behavior. And if you're not changing your audience's behaviors, you truly can unlock all of your brand's potential. These proven behavioral models and methods are the strategic foundation for your brand's success. Visit offmadisonave.com to learn more. Now today I am super excited to have with me, John Brunnquell. He is the president and CEO of Egg innovations. Moreover, John is on a mission to make the world a better place for chickens, people and the planet. He is a third generation farmer and holds advanced degrees in agronomy, which is soil health sciences. I had no idea what that was until this morning, and ABRT theology, which is bird behavior, but binding that knowledge and his entrepreneurial spirit. John pioneered Egg Innovations’ launch of the first regeneratively farmed specialty egg helpful hens and is the industry leader in free range. pasteurize raised eggs and providing which provides nearly a million eggs a day to to the market daily. John today Good. Welcome to the show. But did I get anything wrong? In that introduction? There's a lot of words I'm unfamiliar with.
John Brunnquell 2:14
No, I look forward to the show. Roger, and thank you very much for the introduction.
Roger Hurni 2:19
Okay, good crew, tough introduction to get through. You have a really fascinating background in academia when it comes to to farming. I, I honestly, in the pre show, I had said this to John, for all the listeners that I had no idea that you could innovate an egg. And that doesn't feel like there's a finish line there that feels like it's a continuing process. I'm curious what got you interested in this area, outside of being a third generation farmer, but specifically reinventing the egg, if I may use that term? And how did that lead to the creation of Egg Innovations?
John Brunnquell 3:00
Well, in 1985, I returned from college to family farm. And we had a very, very small egg operation 7000 chickens, which by today's standards is is inconsequential. And my father, like all good fathers said welcome back now figure out how you're going to get paid and so, I looked at the side of the business because the cropping part of the business was already being tended to by my older brothers. And I spent about two years going, what do I really want to do in the egg business and, and there were really two paths. One was what I is with appropriate humor, I call it cuckoo Plex, which is another multimillion bird commodity. Let's focus on getting more efficient every year. And the industry has many of those. When I started my career, premium major specialty eggs didn't exist. And cholesterol was the issue in the 1980s. And we thought that eating eggs eating bacon was going to kill you. And what put us on the map was I was the first person in the nation to have patents out of a land grant university on cholesterol reduction. And so my master's degree is in nutrient manipulation of shell eggs, I can alter the cholesterol, the fat, the nutrient profile. And so at a very young age, I was in the boardrooms of the entire egg industry that followed that up with fat patents or fat reduction patterns. And I was I thought on their journey and then in the early 90s, I walked into my first cage free barn. And prior to that I was trained classically that cages were good. And I simply couldn't wrap my head around that that chicken that could walk around had a worse quality of life than in a cage because I had grown up with birds in cages. And then I heard the messaging on both sides of the aisle. People from the industry saying That cages are good. And this is all the reasons why and, and people at the other end of the aisle saying that, you know, a production shouldn't even exist. And I felt that there should be a middle ground, somewhere in there. And so I began a journey of learning of what's welfare. And that journey is still going on to your point. I've been at it for 35 years, at the tender age of 53, I returned back to the university for a doctorate in what's called avian Orthology, which is hen behavior. And what we really focused on in our company is the the core thesis is that the good Lord put every animal on this planet hardwired to a certain behavior. It could be doc, llama, monkey, a person. And in the case of a chicken, it's hardwired to purge to scratch to dust be to socialize, to pasture. And when we looked at, or housing, none of those behaviors were being allowed to occur. The second part of that thesis is if you've entered an animal consistent with the way it's hardwired, good things should happen. And we prove that, oh, our birds live longer, they lay more eggs, lower mortality, etc. And so we feel very good on the journey we're on. And we never had a size goal, we always said the marketplace will tell us the appropriate size. And in the last five to 10 years, market trends have changed significantly, with a much greater focus on ESG on animal welfare. And so people are beginning to recognize what we do.
Roger Hurni 6:40
I think that's, that's amazing. And it, every generation has gotten better about what they eat. I know, as a Gen X, or, you know, I didn't even want to eat with my parents, you know, raised me on, I didn't want to use that for my kids, my kids have shifted their behavior. And so I feel like your business is doing everything, right, based on what's happening today. And I think it's a good cue for a lot of other businesses to, to consider this holistic approach to being good for the environment, putting out a quality product, you know, it feels like you're just in in a sweet spot, right there. That is that a good? Is that a good summation?
John Brunnquell 7:28
I would agree. And I would concur with you that it's very generational, I can have the same conversation with my father who was in his 90s, with my brothers in their 50s and 60s, and my children in their 30s. And we'll get three entirely different responses to what the marketplace should look like.
Roger Hurni 7:46
All right, case in point, he said something there. And I'm not trying to make light of that. But you said, shelled eggs, are there non shelled eggs that I'm unaware of.
John Brunnquell 7:54
So there's a part of the industry, about a third of the industry, if you think of, you go to the grocery store, and you buy a burrito, and it has eggs in it. So there's a part of the industry that breaks open and aid and processes that into a further use or an ingredient in it. So the shell egg market is what we refer to as generally grocery stores.
Roger Hurni 8:15
Right? Yeah, you just go buy your dozen or a dozen and a half and in the package. I assume that what? That's what it was. But since you were so specific about shelled egg, I want to make sure there was clarity there. In the terms of the growth of the business, I noticed that a couple of years ago you purchase Peckish brand is is is that brand acquisition? How does that contribute to your overall mission with with growing Egg Innovations?
John Brunnquell 8:40
So one of the goals we have is to bring welfare out to as many parts of the food chain as possible. You know, there's obviously mass stores, grocery stores, natural grocery stores. One of them is convenience stores. And so we were trying to think of a way that we could bring welfare, to convenience stores and gas stations and the like. And that was the focus of the acquisition of Peckish, no exit.
Roger Hurni 9:07
Well, what else does the future look like for AIG innovations in terms of building the business and expanding out?
John Brunnquell 9:15
So the journey began with cage free. And then we moved on to free range. From there we went to pasture and we kept finding the more space we gave birds, the better they performed. And what happened was an interesting challenges. We became very, very good at getting our girls out on the pasture. And chickens though can become a very aggressive forger and rip up the pasture because of their goal to dig around and explore. And so if you're going to be a significantly size, pasture, egg operator, you also have to become very good at pass. stir management. And that has led us on to our next journey, which is regenerative agriculture. And so we really began to understand that regenerative agriculture in general is good, having a healthy root zone and soil. And for those listeners that don't know regenerative agriculture is about a focus on having a healthy soil and having a healthy root zone. If we all go back to eighth grade biology, we know that a tree or a shrub or a grass breathes in carbon dioxide, and breathes out oxygen. And no one really ever asked where the carbon went. Because carbon is our problem with ozone, etc. And the answer is it goes into soil. And so when we do monoculture, which is rows and rows and rows of corn, or soybeans, or what have you, we're tearing open the soil, and we're releasing carbon. But when we cover the soil with grass, and trees, and shrubs, and pollinators, etc, we make the soil much more healthy. And so our current journey is all about how does the chicken interact with the pasture it's on, that it's a win win not only for the bird, that it can express natural behavior, but also for the soil and the surroundings that it exists. And
Roger Hurni 11:20
it's a good lesson for people to understand that the quality of their food is really does come from that type of regenerative farming and growing and ranching, I worked with a grass fed grass finished rancher on on the product. And when he would put his cows out in the field, he would only give them a certain part of the pasture over the wire. And they would only eat the top three or four inches of grass because that's where the most nutrients are. And as the grass got lower, and he saw them try to start reaching under the wire, he would just move the wire and they would just never go back to the crappy grass because it was growing. And they would just you know, and it seems like that's a sort of similar thing with chickens, if you give them the room, they're just going to eat the best stuff. That's true.
John Brunnquell 12:06
Yeah, very accurate, very fear. In the analogy with the beef. With chickens, it's a little different in our behavior, because we're dealing with a two legged animal that can move around pretty quickly. Yeah, for like a very large animal. But the concept is, is really the same and what we're finding news in the marketplace. People by their spending habits can radically alter what's offered to the market. And so for us with the regenerative aids, while it's the fastest growing brand in the in the nation right now, it's still relatively small. And so it's going to take consumers to understand what they're purchasing, what is a regenerative aid? What does it mean? And why should I pay a premium, because they will have an impact on the planet, which is one of our big three core pillars?
Roger Hurni 12:58
Well, I went to your website, and the photography is fantastic, because when you see the chickens roaming around, and even doing the dust bath and stuff like that, I want to buy those eggs, you know, like, get that out there more, because I really believe that that the public, when they see that kind of humane approach, where we're working with nature and not against it is is a way to convince them to sell I mean, did to buy those to buy those eggs. So I mean, just a compliment there. There was one of the thing on the website, I wanted to get to one other thing. I've got some other questions about marketing and where people find the eggs and stuff like that. Your Business seems to kind of run like almost like a franchise model. It said become a farmer. And I noticed you had to have like 11,000 acres, and I think you had to have the capacity for I think 20,000 hens if I'm not mistaken. How does that work? In terms of how do farmers like sign up with you? And then what does egg innovations do once once the farmer does? what's your what's ag innovations roll?
John Brunnquell 14:09
To clarify, it's 11 acres, not eleven thousand.
Roger Hurni 14:12
Okay, sorry.
John Brunnquell 14:14
But to answer your question, I had a luxury which, which is every year I get older, I really appreciate, which is as the founder, I was able to move forward very quickly on things that I believed in very personally, I did have to fill out five forms get it approved by three levels above me for permission. And one of the legacies I have growing up on a family farm is I believe that a strong rural economy is good. And so as we looked at how we could expand, we looked at different business models. And so we chose to do what's called an integrator model where uses a partnership with farmers as opposed to the company owning all the barns and the and the facilities, what we chose to do is to develop a contract that pays a living wage to our farmers above average, and allows them to participate in the market. And so essentially, we take care of everything other than the farmer provides the building, the utilities and the labor. And then we give them guidance, so they don't really need to know anything about chickens, we will teach them that part of the business. But it allows the farmer to diversify his risk, maybe he's a crop farmer and wants to get into livestock, it allows smaller farmers to participate, because our farms are 20,000 chickens, which in the egg industry, while may seem large to consumer in the egg industry of million birds, 2 million birds is a very normal farm. So 20,000 is very small. And it didn't take a lot of acreage, you know, our farmers might have 200 300 acres. And so for them to use 11 acres of that for this enterprise is something that was a very good fit. And so like I said, our options were to really have it all be company owned, and us put up more barns. But we really felt that would stray away from our core mission of a, in a tiny way helping to have a stronger world economy. And that's why we chose the business model we did.
Roger Hurni 16:29
And it's a franchise. It sounds it sounds like a very much like a franchise operation. I think it's wonderful. And I think that's incredibly innovative. And it seems like it gives people a lot of opportunity that they might not actually have and do it in a unique and sustainable way. I want to turn to the, the pandemic. I know we're on the end of that. It may always be around in some degree or another. But I got to imagine that business might have done well, because of people just trying to be at home more and cook at home more. But how how did the business fair through that situation? And were there any lessons learned.
John Brunnquell 17:15
So first, I'm looking for that piece of wood that I can knock on when you say that it's coming to an end, because we truly hope that you are correct. It was a very interesting journey. In our case, we we don't raise or lower our prices with the egg market. And so while last year, commodity egg prices got very, very expensive. We didn't raise our prices because there was a shortage of eggs. At the same time, if markets go down, we don't we don't lower our price. Our consumers are very much about I want a p value. And I'm willing to pay a fair price. And that's what we try and deliver. I was chatting with someone else when he asked what are the lessons learned probably the biggest lesson that we were not fully prepared for was the emotional duress that our producers had. Fortunately, none of them their flocks, you know, contracted the influenza. But the thought they had every night that they could really created an emotional stress on a lot of our producers. This is their livelihood. You know, they're they're passionate about animals. And for those in the industry who were unfortunate that they didn't get AI, they'll tell you stories that even their employees, they're used to caring for an animal, they're not used to euthanizing them, removing them, you know, what have you. So, last year was a very rugged year for the industry in total. Hopefully we're past that stage. But I would tell you, our biggest learning was at the end of the day, we're still people business, right?
Roger Hurni 19:00
I, my wife gives me grief all the time, because I just I looked for like, you know, organic eggs that are free range. And like I think it'd be $15 a dozen. I'm like whatever I don't, I don't really think about it. I just want the best best quality. And it seems like that's a definitely a path that that you're on helped me understand this with between the farmers and yourself. How does the general public buy a innovations? Is it is it sold under different brands? Because I don't know if I recall, I don't do the grocery shopping in my house. So I don't really recall seeing a big innovations packages had it what does that part of the business look like?
John Brunnquell 19:39
So we have two brands. We have an entry level brand called Blue Sky family farms. And that focuses entirely on the welfare component of the conversation. So the verb reader to walk around we have nothing that's confined permanently. And then for those that want to take a step up, there's a call us too, because it costs us more. We also have a premium brand called helpful hands, which rolls into the regenerative agriculture. And there we're paying the farmers more because we're asking to plant more trees, more shrubs to put an extra emphasis on the past year. And so we pass along some of those costs. You know, those are the two brands. And I would tell you, we're, we're available in parts of the nation everywhere. But if we're not in your market, then it's as simple as asking for it.
Roger Hurni 20:32
Okay, I just didn't know and I go buy eggs? If if is the farmers are going to sell them to somebody is going to package them up under some sort of brand name. Right. All right. So I have to be careful with what I look for. I'm a package that.
John Brunnquell 20:46
Yeah, and so you just want to look for either the blue sky or the helpful hens brand.
Roger Hurni 20:50
Alright, how do how do farmers and which are really your customers? How did they hear about AIG innovations? How did they learn about it? He had a marketing effort around that.
John Brunnquell 21:05
We certainly do. We're expanding again this year. So we're adding additional farmers. Honestly, our farmers are our biggest recruiters. They're our biggest messengers. Because if we treat our farmer fair, right, that's a message they will tell their cousin, their neighbor, you know, what have you and some some most of our growth happens through referral. However, there is an ongoing, you can imagine the usual things, ads in newspapers and the like in the agricultural community. But again, our real core focuses take care of our current family of farmers, and then they'll take care of us.
Roger Hurni 21:46
Yeah, that's a universal lesson in this. So many business CEOs, CMOs that I interview are, like, like our best brand. And I and I've told this to people before, being even being a marketing guy, like, the best brand building ever is the customer experience. And for you as a former experience, but I mean, insert the word that best suits your industry, when you have that the word of mouth around that. You can build amazing organizations that way. And it's really a good value lesson for people to realize that no matter what the company is, like, that's really the end goal is to do that, and a lot of other things sort of take care of itself. Well, things seem to be going really well. What what gives you a headache, like what keeps you up at night?
John Brunnquell 22:39
There's I'm an insomniac. So there's a lot of things that keep me up at night, while relative to the business. We were waiting for that. Next curveball, you know, we had COVID, which led to avian influenza, the last three to four years have been very challenging. What most people probably don't realize is 70 cents out of every dollar, we spend his time grain. And so when then the Ukraine war occurred, people don't realize that a tremendous amount of grain comes out of the Ukraine. So our price of organic soybean meal doubled. I went, hey, $700 a tonne to $1,500 at a time. So we're always being aware of what affects our costs, whether it's the weather, international politics, etc. We're very blessed to have a great team of people. But you always want to be sensitive to them. And our one of our main initiatives in the last 18 months has been just a culture of the organization. What can we do in today's world, because employees today, they're not looking for just a paycheck. They they want to work somewhere where they believe in what that company stands for. And so we want to make sure we stay very true to our mission. And you know, in our world, it's chickens, people plan it. And we never want to lose a focus on that.
Roger Hurni 24:05
Yeah, that's it. That's fascinating how the Ukraine war affects that. I mean, why I shouldn't be surprised. I think it's something like 40% of all the grain in the World Food Program comes out of Ukraine. And that's going to affect the market when you've got to feed people around the world. So that that makes perfect sense. Well, let me put the question on the other side. And what gets what, what are you really excited about now? What are you looking forward to?
John Brunnquell 24:34
Well, I always answer that on a personal level, I have five grandkids. And so spending time and that was always my answer. But lately, we're very excited about this journey we're on about regenerative agriculture. It's still early. Most consumers are still worried what that term means. Most grocers are learning what that term means. And there's a lot of greenwashing that's going on with that term. But it's very exciting, we get into opportunities where we can bring retailers out to our farm. And it's that picture is 1000 words. Last year, we hosted a sustainability event in Wisconsin, we had one of our major retailers out there. And despite years of a relationship and and break conversations, the first time they walked on the farm, they're like, John, you didn't do it justice. And those are very satisfying moments. The other thing that's very satisfying is we have farmers who now have been with us long enough that they have when they borrowed money to put up a building that's now paid off. And to go and sit down and talk with them about the journey they went on and to have it have delivered on the promise around, that's at the end of day I was eminent people business, and when you can have a positive impact on people's lives. Those are satisfying moments.
Roger Hurni 26:03
Yeah, this led to your answer led to another question. So now I'm just gonna take the liberty of being the interviewer here. That mission of regenerative farming and just making people aware beyond the farmers because they're your best salespeople. How do you? How do you move that? What are the best ways to move that mission forward? So that the general public is just more aware that these options are out there?
John Brunnquell 26:33
So the focus we have here is transparency. And you know, there's as far as educating the public face the usual social media and working with retailers in the wide opportunities, like today on a on a podcast. But really, what we have found is people want to trust what they're mine, and they trust it a lot more if there's transparency. So what does that mean for us? What are we measuring in the soil? If we say that we're passionate about the soil, let's tell them what we're passionate about. This is what we score. This is what we measure. This is how you can validate it. And so that's where we really put our focus.
Roger Hurni 27:18
There. Fair enough. I got one last question. You've been really wonderful with your time and I deeply appreciate it. And there's a lot of great advice in your answers beyond your industry that I know people can can really take to heart in us. But I think that everything is always a learning experience. So my my question I say that are asked that I wrap up every show with is what is the worst advice you've ever gotten?
John Brunnquell 27:49
I would tell you the worst advice I ever received was John, you shouldn't go into agriculture.
Roger Hurni 27:59
Well, I'm glad you didn't pay attention to because we're certainly all better for it. I think the answer speaks volumes about you. So did you want to expand on that? I think I might have cut you off. No, I'm good. All right. Well, again, thank you so much for for being on the show today. I really appreciate it.
John Brunnquell 28:23
Thanks very much. Enjoyed it.
Roger Hurni 28:25
I've been speaking. I've been speaking with John Brunnquell. He is the president and CEO of AIG innovations. John, where can people learn more about you and AIG innovations?
John Brunnquell 28:37
Visit our websites? Egg innovations.com And the two brand blue sky.com and helpful hints.com.
Roger Hurni 28:46
Excellent, excellent. Thank you again, I am Roger Hurni, the host of From Persona to Personal and we will see you next time.
Outro 28:54
Thanks for listening to From Persona to Personal, the podcast that takes a closer look into how organizations personalize their marketing. We'll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.
