It’s Farm Fresh, All-Natural at GOOD EARTH EGG COMPANY
By Nancy Smith, board member, Missouri Farmers Union
Susan David and her husband, Johnny, are some of the hardest-working folks I know.
In an industry beset by consolidation, they are dedicated to providing the St. Louis market with all-natural, hormone- and antibiotic-free eggs in several sizes and colors. That takes work. The couple, together with Johnny’s parents, manages a flock of 80,000 laying hens.
Good Earth Egg Company is now the only volume egg production farm in the St. Louis area that delivers farm fresh, all-natural eggs to grocery stores and restaurants. The family shares the farm work; caring for the chickens, grading eggs and delivering fresh eggs.
All this seems a lot of work for anybody, but there’s more. Susan also holds down a full-time off-farm job to help pay the bills while they struggle to succeed in competition with corporate farms with much deeper pockets. In the wee hours of the morning, Susan delivers eggs as she travels from the farm in Bonne Terre to her job in St. Louis. This woman just doesn’t give up. She is constantly seeking new opportunities to market her eggs. She closely monitors the Midwest egg market to make sure their pricing is always a little under the market. She designs the cartons for Good Earth Eggs.
Back home at the farm, Johnny is taking care of baby chicks and monitoring the grading of 5,000 dozen eggs a day. In his spare time, he is experimenting with methods of composting the 500 pounds a day of chicken manure that is a useful byproduct of their flock. Manure is spread on hayfields and grass to feed the farm’s cattle. In the future, the couple hopes to be able to bag and market the manure for sale to gardeners. There really isn’t anything quite so effective on the garden as composted chicken manure. Its effect on all types of plants is just short of miraculous.
Sappington Farmers Market is proud to offer Grade A Large White Good Earth Eggs at the lowest prices for eggs anywhere in St. Louis. The store also carries their brown eggs, and even double-yolk eggs. Jumbo eggs are coming, as soon as Susan can design a carton.
For pictures of the couple and their farm, go to my blog, Fresh Food Nancy. You can click onto “blog” in the upper righthand corner of Sappington Farmers Market website.
Sappington Farmers Market is located at 8400 Watson Road, between Elm Ave. and Laclede Station Road.
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