Egg popularity growing

By CAITLIN SULLIVAN/Staff

This is a story about the egg and its trip from the largest egg producer in the state, here on Wyndale Road in Washington County, to the distribution center in Abingdon and to the store and consumer. This week, as the egg makes its way from the grocery warehouse to the consumer, is the last in our series. To read the first two articles in this series visit www.swvatoday.com and search “eggs.”

In the egg aisle at Food County in Abingdon, Johnny Justice picks up a carton of eggs while Anna Justice holds the buggy. The pair eat eggs at least three times a week - sometimes even for dinner. Johnny likes them medium-rare and Anna likes them any way.
People didn’t always eat eggs with such abandon, said Rodney Wagner, vice-president of Green Valley Poultry Farms on Wyndale Road in Washington County. They weren’t always a popular item at the grocery store.
Wagner, whose dad started the egg production business on a farm in Rhea Valley nearly 45 years ago, said eggs’ popularity has waxed and waned with fads.
“There was the cholesterol issue for years and then they were told they could eat eggs, then there was the salmonella issue,” Wagner said.
In the same way, Green Valley Poultry Farm wasn’t always the biggest of the big boys in Virginia. In the 1960s, Wagner said, there could be six egg producers in one town. Now there’s only a handful of big boys in the state.
As the industry changed so too has the consumers’ affinity toward its product.
The popularity is waxing on again nowadays.
In this tougher economic climate, people are finding out eggs are cheap, cheaper than meat, and make a tasty meal.
General Manager of Abingdon-based distributer Dutt & Wagner Kenny Hobbs said the past two years has been some of Green Valley’s most profitable, at least in part because of the economy.
“People migrate from higher-cost products, like beef, to chicken and eggs,” he said.
Demand, though, is seasonal, too. November and December shows a spike. In July and August, not as many people are buying what he’s selling.
Another change, Hobbs said, is where Dutt & Wagner is selling. These days more deliveries are going to the chains and fewer are going to the mom-and-pop stores.
“We’re losing all of the independents and everything is migrating to chains, the Wal-Mart’s of the world,” he said.
Friday, though, Dutt & Wagner truck driver Brain Ditto pulls a truck of Green Valley Poultry Farm eggs and other products into the Food Country parking lot in Abingdon. Mackenzie Riley, 18, waits for the delivery in the back of the store. Pulling the pallet of eggs off, he unwraps the plastic.
Stacking eggs was his first task when he started working at Food Country.
He’s been stocking shelves, bagging, working as a cashier and cleaning the store for a year and a half now.
“You learn about people, how other people act and how to treat people,” Riley said.
When he first comes in after school or on the weekends he gathers trash, cleans the bathrooms and sweeps. Then he fills up the milk and eggs shelves and at 8:30 p.m. he cleans the floors.
At 10 p.m. he goes home.
The Abingdon High School senior works 40 hours a week. He said he needs to pay his $400 monthly car insurance bill. It’s the trade off for driving a red Trans Am.
“I do miss it but I do realize I need to work and stuff,” he said.
Riley said the up side, aside from the sports car, is the fun stuff that happens. Like the person locking himself in the bathroom for two hours or the would-be customer who stole a whole rotisserie chicken by sticking it down his pants and the man who asked one night if he had any food in the store.
But on this Friday night, out on the egg aisle, Johnny Justice puts eggs in the buggy. Growing up in Buchanan County, he hunted for his eggs in places outside the grocery store coolers. He’d follow his family’s hens to their nests and grab the eggs, leaving one so she’d lay there again. He loved the taste of those eggs, he said.
To contact Caitlin Sullivan e-mail csullivan@wythenews.com or call (276) 628-7101.