Queensland egg supply chain cracking up

North Queensland's “cackleberry” supply chain could take a direct hit if Kelso egg producer Geoff Ironside doesn't get hundreds of thousands of cartons up here by the end of next week.

His Twelve Oaks poultry farm at suburban Kelso produces one million eggs a week that are sold north from Mackay and west to Mount Isa, the Townsville Bulletin reported.

Every week eggs are packed into 80,000 containers, each containing one dozen eggs bearing the labels of a number of North Queensland retailers including Woolworths, McDonalds, Hungry Jacks and IGA.

If Twelve Oaks runs out of egg cartons, the eggs laid each day by more than 200,000 hens don't leave the farm.

The only hope now is to have egg cartons moved up the coast by a resupply ship from Brisbane next week.

The ship was expected to leave Townsville yesterday for Brisbane. It is due to load in Brisbane on Sunday and return to Townsville by mid next week.

It couldn't get much worse for Ironside. He has one truck stuck in Toowoomba with egg cartons on board and another stuck in Brisbane.

“Hopefully we'll get some out of Brisbane by boat on Sunday,” he said.

“We've got five 20-foot containers and that should keep us going for a week. And there's another boat leaving Sydney on Monday that will be here at the end of next week and we hope to have cartons on it.”

Like everyone at the northern end of the food supply business, Ironside and his staff are scrambling to find ways and means to get necessary production items into the region.

He is fortunate so far that he can get the 150 tonnes of grain feed a week he needs from Clermont, but if the low Belyando or Cape River bridges south of Charters Towers go under for a long period, that vital road link in his production supply chain will be cut.

“The wet season has only just started. It's got along way to go yet. I haven't got a lot of confidence in the roads remaining open for long when they do open,” he said.

Ironside said he hoped coastal shipping would continue throughout the flood crisis.
(Source:www.cargonewsasia.com)