THEN: In September 2015, Caroline Murphy of West Cork Eggs told Irish Country Living how she started her business with just four hens on a wing and a prayer. By 2015, she had grown her flock to 1,400 feathered friends and was supplying approximately 20 shops, including 12 Super Valu stores, and five food service outlets.
In September 2015, Caroline Murphy of West Cork Eggs told Irish Country Living how she started her business with just four hens, on a wing and a prayer.
NOW: In the last five years, Caroline’s flock has grown to 3,000 hens, with 40 customers on the books, including 21 Super Valu stores. And COVID-19 only saw demand for her eggs grow, due to the rise in home-baking and stock-piling, as well as an outbreak of avian flu in the North of Ireland, which saw supply dip nationally.
“So literally we could have sold double if not triple what we had,” says Caroline, who plans to expand her flock again in the near future.
“The only challenge in it really was to try and keep everybody happy; it’s not like a factory where you can say ‘we need twice as much stock’. They only lay one egg a day.”
This sense of “business as usual” was very grounding in a time of great uncertainty.
Sanity
“That kept the sanity during COVID,” she says. “I think as farmers we’re kind of used to isolating in a sense anyway, you’re not going out to work in an office, you’re used to being at home, but it kept the routine. And then with the four kids off school, we had four extra pairs of hands, which was brilliant!”
But it’s not just the hens that have kept Caroline busy over the last five years. Having received great support through Network Ireland, she is now president of the West Cork branch.
Like everything, the group had to adapt during COVID - for instance, replacing their monthly meetings with weekly webinars over Zoom covering everything from finance to internet security - which Caroline believes was an important support at a challenging time.
If you are a woman in business, you may be working on your own and these network events are your way of meeting people
“Especially at the beginning, it was a very lonely place to be and especially if you are a woman in business, you may be working on your own and these network events are your way of meeting people; all that stopped,” she says.
“It has in a sense helped build camaraderie between everybody in a very different way.”
Cover feature
Since her cover feature with Irish Country Living, Caroline has also retrained as a life, business and leadership mentor. Apart from her business success, Caroline has also had to overcome adversity in life, having lost her daughter Leah in 2009.
Such life experience has left her with a longing to help others overcome challenges and realise the potential that they might not always see in themselves.
I do believe that we should all be living the life that we want to live
“As women I think we’re the best ones for getting in our own way and just not having the confidence to go forward and it’s a mind-set thing,” she says.
“It’s kind of like, ‘This is where you are, this is where you want to be’, and helping people get their own road map to get there.
“I do believe that we should all be living the life that we want to live - not trudging through life and just on the hamster wheel - and it sounds so clichéd, but the only limits we have are on ourselves. And it’s getting from where we are today to actually believing that and living that.”
For further information, visit https://www.facebook.com/westcorkeggs/
Read more
From city chic to country chick
Stories of loved ones lost: remembering baby Leah
THEN: In September 2015, Caroline Murphy of West Cork Eggs told Irish Country Living how she started her business with just four hens on a wing and a prayer. By 2015, she had grown her flock to 1,400 feathered friends and was supplying approximately 20 shops, including 12 Super Valu stores, and five food service outlets.
In September 2015, Caroline Murphy of West Cork Eggs told Irish Country Living how she started her business with just four hens, on a wing and a prayer.
NOW: In the last five years, Caroline’s flock has grown to 3,000 hens, with 40 customers on the books, including 21 Super Valu stores. And COVID-19 only saw demand for her eggs grow, due to the rise in home-baking and stock-piling, as well as an outbreak of avian flu in the North of Ireland, which saw supply dip nationally.
“So literally we could have sold double if not triple what we had,” says Caroline, who plans to expand her flock again in the near future.
“The only challenge in it really was to try and keep everybody happy; it’s not like a factory where you can say ‘we need twice as much stock’. They only lay one egg a day.”
This sense of “business as usual” was very grounding in a time of great uncertainty.
Sanity
“That kept the sanity during COVID,” she says. “I think as farmers we’re kind of used to isolating in a sense anyway, you’re not going out to work in an office, you’re used to being at home, but it kept the routine. And then with the four kids off school, we had four extra pairs of hands, which was brilliant!”
But it’s not just the hens that have kept Caroline busy over the last five years. Having received great support through Network Ireland, she is now president of the West Cork branch.
Like everything, the group had to adapt during COVID - for instance, replacing their monthly meetings with weekly webinars over Zoom covering everything from finance to internet security - which Caroline believes was an important support at a challenging time.
If you are a woman in business, you may be working on your own and these network events are your way of meeting people
“Especially at the beginning, it was a very lonely place to be and especially if you are a woman in business, you may be working on your own and these network events are your way of meeting people; all that stopped,” she says.
“It has in a sense helped build camaraderie between everybody in a very different way.”
Cover feature
Since her cover feature with Irish Country Living, Caroline has also retrained as a life, business and leadership mentor. Apart from her business success, Caroline has also had to overcome adversity in life, having lost her daughter Leah in 2009.
Such life experience has left her with a longing to help others overcome challenges and realise the potential that they might not always see in themselves.
I do believe that we should all be living the life that we want to live
“As women I think we’re the best ones for getting in our own way and just not having the confidence to go forward and it’s a mind-set thing,” she says.
“It’s kind of like, ‘This is where you are, this is where you want to be’, and helping people get their own road map to get there.
“I do believe that we should all be living the life that we want to live - not trudging through life and just on the hamster wheel - and it sounds so clichéd, but the only limits we have are on ourselves. And it’s getting from where we are today to actually believing that and living that.”
For further information, visit https://www.facebook.com/westcorkeggs/
Read more
From city chic to country chick
Stories of loved ones lost: remembering baby Leah
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