Meet the NFU Poultry Board

James is a previous chair of the NFU Poultry Industry Programme and has always been passionate about ensuring the voice of younger members is well represented.

He is keen for the board to address issues surrounding labour shortages, resilience and supply chain fairness and believes these are some of the industry's main priorities.

Will is a former PIP (Poultry Industry Programme) participant and was crowned the PIP award winner in 2021, receiving a prize from the Worshipful Company of Poulters.

Alongside the farming enterprise, Will has invested heavily in solar panels and biomass boilers in attempts to achieve net zero.

During his time on the board, Will would like to place emphasis on better UK food security.

He is passionate about promoting the high standards of UK poultry to consumers, stakeholders and politicians.

They produce, pack and market both colony and free-range eggs along with buying eggs from contract producers.

They also rear some of their own pullets in a multi-tier system.

Phill will bring a practical experience of the egg laying industry to the board and wants to facilitate a better interaction between the farmer, members of the public and governing bodies to enable a viable, productive and environmentally friendly industry with long term benefits to all parties concerned.

Together the family farm two free range laying hen sites and a further site producing vaccine eggs.

David has been contributing to workstreams on measuring the phosphate levels in the River Wye and also has an interest in developing ways in which farmers can feed their flocks more competitively.

In his previous role as the owner of a poultry building construction company, Richard specialised in implementing innovative, new technology into the construction of large-scale poultry buildings.

Alongside this, Richard owns and operates several broiler farms across the UK.

Richard wants to bring his experiences in innovation to the NFU Poultry Board and would like it to address the need for fairness within the supply chain.

As a member of the NFU Poultry Board and a former NFU Poultry Industry Programme participant, Matt is keen to get more young people involved with poultry and farms with the aim to produce more from less, alongside enhancing the local environment.

The poultry sector's resilience, aiming to maintain its environmentally sustainable credentials and producing safe and affordable food for everyone are some of the things Matt sees as key priorities for the sector.

Patrick has grown up within the business and is currently a production and sales director.

He hopes to bring his experiences from primary poultry production to the board, to assist in dealing with access to labour and working collaboratively across the sector to tackle any challenges and opportunities going forward.

Being a previous participant of the Poultry Industry Programme has led to Will’s interest in the NFU and he joined the Poultry Board in 2022.

As a motivated farmer Will wants to engage with fellow members to ensure the industry’s best interests are put forward.

Jo also farms blackcurrants, cider apples, grapes for wine as well as being a passionate advocate of the stewardship of our beautiful countryside.

With 650,000 birds on the ground at any one time, Jo supplies Avara with around 6 million birds per year from 22 sheds.

She has three 650KW chicken litter burners and several arrays of 500kw solar panels and employs six people to help look after her chickens.

Jo's main concern is fairness in the supply chain and for consumers to understand the cost of bringing quality food to the table.

Lucy has invested heavily in renewables over the years and has solar panels, biomass boilers and a ground source heat pump which all contribute to business resilience while reducing her carbon emissions.

One of Lucy’s key focus areas is highlighting the career opportunities that poultry can offer. She sees staff training and career development as critical for attracting and retaining talent across the sector.

Lucy sees promotion of British poultry products to consumers as a priority work area for her first term on the board.

Elwyn Griffiths, Technical and Financial Director of Oaklands Farm Eggs, has celebrated many decades of successful egg production, centring around food safety, animal welfare and research.

Griffiths Green Enterprises have recently invested in innovative transformational technology creating electricity utilising chicken manure, building constantly on Elwyn’s principles to protect the environment.

Elwyn’s priorities for the national poultry board include improving UK food policy and enabling farmers to produce food in an environmentally and economically sustainable way.

He also sees addressing challenges within the planning system as a key focus area.

Rebecca's family-run business has grown from a small enterprise into an award-winning national egg brand.

Rebecca is an advocate for women in agriculture and is passionate about connecting farmers and farming practices with consumers to help educate and inform the public about how food is produced and why they should back British farming.

Alongside the poultry meat business, 11 years ago Harry was instrumental in setting up a free range and organic egg business, packing and marketing free range and organic eggs into retail.

More recently Harry has diversified further into a small speciality mushroom business supplying into retail.

Harry brings a breadth of poultry meat and egg sector expertise as a co-opted member of the national poultry board.

In addition, he operates a fully automated and highly invested modern poultry processing plant.

He has always farmed in an environmentally friendly way, having planted many tens of thousands of trees and vast areas of range enrichment and biodiversity.

Mark wants to bring his experiences of the speciality poultry table bird industry and poultry processing to the board. One of his biggest priorities is for longer term solutions for avian influenza including fair compensation and producing a vaccine.

Alongside poultry he has diversified into beef production.

He represents the independent sector as the NFU representative on the Red Tractor Poultry Board trying to give a balanced approach to the Red Tractor assurance scheme.

Paul is the owner of KellyBronze where they grow and process Christmas turkeys for sale through e-commerce and independent butchers.

His key aims for the board are to ensure we maintain a fit and vibrant UK turkey industry alongside all other poultry.