At the tender age of just 22, LJ Fairburn’s Poppy Jones is already an award-winning young farmer. Michael Barker reports
Most 22-year-olds are either finishing university, backpacking around south-east Asia, or perhaps stepping onto the lowest rungs of the job ladder while they try to figure out what they want to do next. They are not responsible for 40 poultry producers at one of the country’s most respected egg suppliers and winning awards for their work into the bargain.
However that’s exactly the situation that Poppy Jones, the national assistant production manager at LJ Fairburn & Son, finds herself in, and it’s fair to say she’s loving the ride. The Skegness native was recently named Young Farmer of the Year at the National Egg & Poultry Awards, seeing off more experienced rivals as the judges recognised the wide-reaching and responsible position she has achieved at such a young age.
Speaking to Jones, it’s clear her everyday role is extremely varied and touches upon many aspects of the business. She describes overseeing pullet moves, liaising with producers and vets, organising vaccines, checking on the birds, helping analyse feed rations, monitoring egg weights and assisting with audits. All in all, a highly fulfilling job.
The relationship between Jones’ family and LJ Fairburn goes back many years. Her mother actually worked for the company as an egg collector at a young age before going off to join her family’s business. Later, and looking to make use of her own land, it was with advice from the Fairburn team that she invested in a shed and moved into egg production herself, marking the start of a journey that that has led to a 40,000-bird farm that still supplies Fairburn’s today.
The younger Jones therefore very much grew up surrounded by poultry. She recalls not being allowed to open presents on Christmas Day morning until all the eggs had been collected, and one could say it was written in the stars that she would go on to join the LJ Fairburn team. Despite what seems from the outside like an obvious career path though, the poultry industry wasn’t necessarily in her life plan: “I finished school and was in my first year at college when Covid hit,” she explains. “I didn’t really know what to do because I didn’t want to go to university and sit in a bedroom by myself while we were in lockdown. And then I spoke to Dan [Fairburn], and he said why don’t you come and work for us and do an apprenticeship, and then you’ll learn all the different strings of the business? I thought it sounded interesting, so I joined and did a supply chain, FMCG apprenticeship through Lincoln Uni at the same time. I worked in every single department of the business, apart from accounts, health & safety and HR.”
Jones’s apprenticeship saw her spend up to six weeks in each department to learn how each of them operates. That meant spending time on the farms experiencing the rearing and laying process, before moving to the mill to see how the feed was made. From there it was to the packing centre, technical and quality assurance, before switching to sales and marketing, and finally transport and supply chain. It’s hard to imagine a more comprehensive introduction into a modern poultry company.
That initiation, from September 2020 through to October 2022, gave Jones a broad understanding of the Fairburn business and a taste of what areas her skills would be best suited to. Initially offered a full-time position in supply chain, when a vacancy came up to work more closely with producers, it was again Daniel Fairburn that suggested she move roles. “I transferred over and have not looked back,” she says.
Realities of life
Exciting and varied a period as it was, it was also not a smooth ride and Jones was quickly exposed to the harsh realities of life on the farm. LJ Fairburn suffered an avian flu outbreak in December 2021, which caused substantial disruption to the business and a hit to the bottom line. It’s difficult to put a positive spin on such a traumatic event, but Jones is choosing to find the silver lining in what was a highly emotional situation to witness so soon in her career. “I was a part of the team when we got that hit, and it was obviously a very big challenge both physically and mentally, because you see the dead birds and it is draining,” she recalls. “I could not describe to anyone the feeling that we all went through. But I am a positive and a glass-half-full person, and looking back, even though it was a negative impact on the business we’ve come out positively with the business still standing. And we’ve thought about what we can do to make sure it doesn’t happen again, so we’ve put extra biosecurity in place to minimise the risks. I met a lot of people along the way and learnt a lot of things where I’ve thought that if we hadn’t got bird flu I wouldn’t have met them and learnt about all these different outcomes.”
As a very young woman in an industry dominated by much older men, it could have been an intimidating experience running audits and interacting with farmers generally, and Jones has understandably chosen to take a collaborative, friendly approach. “Obviously firstly I’m a woman and then secondly I’m young, so if there’s a problem and a non-conformance I’m not going to just give them a piece of paper and tell them to sort it out,” she says. “I will say ‘let’s work together to resolve the problem so it doesn’t happen again in the future’, almost teaming up with them rather than going against them. But everyone’s been really understanding.”
Describing herself as a “people person”, Jones’s role makes sense, and she recounts how her sister suggested she wouldn’t enjoy spending hours in her bedroom studying at university. “I hate being cooped up,” she agrees, “so it was definitely the right choice for me.”
Given she didn’t have formal poultry qualifications beyond audit training, the role of managers and mentors has been important in Jones’ journey so far. She is quick to pick out Fairburn’s national production manager John Holt and her former supply chain manager Alice Turner for praise, saying she learnt a huge amount from the pair about both the job roles specifically, and birds and vaccines generally.
Playing a full role
Jones has played her part in a number of the company’s notable initiatives, not least the ground-breaking Bed & Breakfast Scheme that sees producers supported with a package of measures that promises a guaranteed return on their investment, supplying them with pullets and feed as they raise flocks on the company’s behalf. Overseeing the Norfolk Bed & Breakfast partnerships, Jones says the scheme is going “really smoothly and really well”, and allows her to take more of a hands-on, in-depth role than might be possible with the general producers. The scheme is still in its early stages, but the company is hopeful many more producers will join once they see the benefits.
In a further contribution, Jones was selected to be part of a small focus group to help design the packaging for Fairburn’s British blue egg, and the fast pace of her work and the industry generally is undoubtedly part of the job appeal. “Machines are changing, birds are changing, technology is changing, supermarkets are changing – it’s a very fast-moving industry,” she says. Sustainability is another area of change, with LJ Fairburn focused on making sure its producers are sourcing sustainable soya as part of the company’s – and supermarkets’ – drive to reduce their environmental impact.
Jones’s short career has been such a whirlwind that she hasn’t had time to think about where it will go over the next few years, though she has joined the Young Women in Poultry Production group as she gains further exposure to the wider industry. While she expects to continue to work at Fairburn’s for the long term, she is also conscious that the opportunity to take over the family farm will be there when her mother retires. “My mum likes that I’m working in the industry because she knows I understand all about it now,” she explains. “So if she ever has a problem, she rings me up, and I think she knows that when she wants to retire, it’s in my capable hands to take it over. I would probably have to get a manager to run it day in, day out, so I can still work at Fairburn’s, but I would like to be able to do it.”
Jones was surprised to win the award, and indeed didn’t even know she was in the frame until late in the process. “Some of the girls in sales put me forward,” she explains. “I feel really honoured to be considered and then put forward, and then to actually win. I just see that I’m doing my day-to-day job.” It’s all happened so fast, but with so many years ahead of her, it’ll be fascinating to see how her career develops after such a strong start.