A Thirsk egg producer with 20 staff and a turnover of £18 million a year is entering the Family Business category of The Press Business Awards 2013.

James Potter Yorkshire Farmhouse Eggs is Yorkshire’s largest – and the UK’s second largest – producer of free-range-only eggs.

The company, of Village Farm, Catton, near Thirsk, is immensely proud of its “hen-centric” approach and its policy of handling only free-range and organic eggs. This means all 200,000 of its hens are free to roam outside in woodlands and on fresh pasture and to supplement their diet with grass, worms and insects.

Supplying Morrisons, Tesco, ASDA and Sainsbury’s, the company has seen the volume of the eggs it handles increase by 250 per cent in the last five years, with significant investment going into hen housing and a state-of-the-art crack-detection system which can monitor 130,000 eggs per hour.

Eggs are collected and packed daily so can be in the shops within 24 hours of being laid.

The family-run business, which has been producing free-range eggs for more than 30 years, started out with a small flock so that Mrs Potter could have eggs “the way they used to taste”.

The business has been built upon a firm reputation for high standards of animal welfare, providing hens with the run of acres of outdoor space with plenty of tree cover to encourage foraging, dust-bathing and other natural behaviour.

Earlier this year, the company launched its highly successful 555 campaign, which sought to debunk the myth that free-range eggs are much more expensive to buy than caged or budget eggs. Price comparisons and research conducted by James Potter Yorkshire Farmhouse Eggs found that it would cost just £5.55 per year to switch to buying free-range eggs – significantly lower than consumers’ perceptions.