Eggheads is the go-to podcast for egg industry professionals who are interested in leadership and innovation in the egg world. Host Greg Schonefeld explores the evolving world of modern egg farming, from the latest in cage-free innovations and organic certifications to navigating the economics of large-scale production. Whether you're an egg producer, supplier, or involved in poultry genetics, this show provides the insights and expert discussions you need to thrive in the industry. Crack open the science, strategies, and stories behind the egg industry’s biggest challenges and opportunities.
Jack Hughes:
Most of my family do work on an egg farm. I vowed I would never work on an egg farm. That was not my intention. My intention was to go into the RAF, coincidentally. So, instead of learning how to fly a plane, I learned to look after something with wings instead.
Greg Schonefield:
Hi there. Welcome back to episode 17 of Eggheads. I'm your host Greg Schonefeld. We spend a lot of time talking eggs from a US perspective, and during many of our conversations with guests, we often reference how things are done, or have been done, in Europe. At times it becomes a sort of, "This is how it's done here and that's how it's done there." So, we thought it was time to have a few conversations across the pond, and our next guest brings that perspective firsthand, having dedicated his career to the poultry industry in the UK and beyond.
Jack Hughes:
We all get up in the morning and we all put socks on. If the practicality is simple, then we just do it, so why shouldn't it be the same in entering a shed? Why shouldn't it be the same in entering any farm area, that it's that simple you just do it?
Greg Schonefield:
Jack Hughes isn't just a biosecurity expert, he's a practical problem solver. Jack understands that the best solutions are the ones farmers can actually stick to. His approach focuses on making biosecurity measures straightforward and effective.
Jack Hughes:
If it's hard, you're just questioning, "Why am I doing this?" And that's where we work heavily with our customers to just work out what is easy to do on this farm.
Greg Schonefield:
Jack began his journey in the poultry industry at just 16, working on a local farm in his village. Starting with hands-on roles in stockmanship and farm management, he rose through the ranks to eventually manage a farm of his own. His career later transitioned into auditing for the British Lion Code, the UK's leading assurance scheme for eggs, giving him a comprehensive view of the industry, from hatcheries to feed mills, and taking him across the UK and Europe.
Now biosecurity advisor with Livetec, Jack combines his practical farming background and compliance expertise to help farmers navigate complex challenges. His work bridges the gap between industry regulations and on-the-ground realities, providing producers with practical, effective solutions. Today, Jack shares his perspective on biosecurity, industry standards and the human side of farming, a take we haven't explored yet on Eggheads.
Jack, I guess you've listened to at least a couple episodes of Eggheads, right?
Jack Hughes:
Yeah, I'm pretty much up to date with most of them.
Greg Schonefield:
Oh, great.
Jack Hughes:
I enjoy listening to them. Something we don't really have over here in the UK, so it's nice to see somebody's picking up on the egg industry. Yeah, it's refreshing.
Greg Schonefield:
Oh good. I wouldn't say anything's really existed here, so hope it can help and appreciate you being a part of it.
Jack Hughes:
Thank you very much for inviting me on. I appreciate people bringing communication to the industry and keeping the conversations going.
Greg Schonefield:
Well, where you are now, you're really trying to work to craft a tailor-made solution for each of your clients based on their needs, based on their makeup.
Jack Hughes:
Yes, of course. We're there to ensure they do comply, but our main objective as Livetec, and as myself, is to stop anything getting into those units and potentially getting back out of those units. We ensure they're compliant with the schemes, but if it means we have to go above that, we have to put other infrastructure in, we will advise on that.
Greg Schonefield:
And the compliance, so are there government regulations, I guess, around the biosecurity and you're helping people meet those? Or is it kind of helping craft strategies for success? Or a mix of both?
Jack Hughes:
A mix of both. So, the government have a certain set of standards, but really the British Lion Code is above that. The barrier systems that have to be put in place to mitigate every point to getting into the units.
Greg Schonefield:
The British Lion Code, managed by the British Egg Industry Council, is the UK's leading assurance scheme for egg production. Think of it as a comprehensive standard that ensures eggs are safe, welfare-friendly, and fully traceable, similar to USDA or FDA regulations in the US, but tailored specifically for eggs.
Jack Hughes:
But again, it is one shoe fits all. This is what we want you to have, and there's no real explanation behind why. So, one of the instances going into the live bird area, you need a solid barrier of at least 30 centimeters. I don't understand the science behind the 30 centimeter barrier, and I fully back, and we fully understand the barrier system, but to me it should be built to accommodate the person who is on that farm.
Yes, 30 centimeters is pretty high, you will notice it, but if we've got people working on that farm who are 65, 70, 75, elders of a farm, because we're not all young farmers in the game, really they're going to want somewhere to sit on. They're going to want the ability to sit down. They're going to need the ability to make sure that they're changing the footwear correctly.
Greg Schonefield:
Speaking to that barrier, so on one side of it is kind of the dirty side that you walk in on, the other side's the clean side. And as you're doing that, you're going to sit on that barrier, take your shoes off on the dirty side, go over to the clean side and work there. But yeah, as you say, the barrier might have a government specification, but it's not necessarily the right, practical answer for everybody.
Jack Hughes:
Yes, exactly. And that is where we come in as a company and ensure that we're looking at the aspects of the farm, how does it work? How are you working it? How are you managing it? Is it working? Because if it isn't working, then we need to change something. And our major aspect is easiness, it has to be easy. We have to make sure we are doing things easily, so our staff and staff members on farm are more likely to do it. The harder it becomes, the more fatigued they will get, and they're just going to step over it, they're going to move around it. So for us, it is about that easiness and how people can manage it.
Greg Schonefield:
Before we dive deeper, let's take a moment to explain what Livetec does. They specialize in biosecurity solutions for the poultry industry, but what sets them apart is their personal approach. By working closely with farmers, Jack and his team develop and implement practical measures to prevent disease outbreaks. Yes, they ensure compliance and industry standards and promote animal health, but it's how they get there, through tailored hands-on support, that makes them truly effective.
Most of our listeners are in the US here. I don't know, when it comes to biosecurity, maybe it would help to start with a little context on are there major differences between the UK and the US when it comes to biosecurity? I don't know how much exposure you have to US biosecurity.
Jack Hughes:
No, I'm hoping you'll feed me into this, Greg.
Greg Schonefield:
Sure.
Jack Hughes:
I'm trying to learn and trying to pick up a bit of knowledge on what's going on over there in the US, and see where we possibly can help and what we can bring to the table. The way we look at biosecurity is the least people we can have coming onto that farm, the better. The least vehicles we can have coming onto that farm, the better. So, we will always start our visits from the perimeter, so from the gate entrance to the live bird.
So, that's from coming into the farm, walking down the track, up to outside of the farm unit, into the anti-room or the egg collection room, and then into the live bird. If I have got to that live bird without being stopped, we have a problem. So, the aim is vehicles, staff vehicles, visitors, keep their vehicles off. If there's nowhere to keep them off, then we should always have the ability for feed wagons, egg collection vehicles to be cleaned and disinfected.
Disinfection will not work on muck or dirt, so you see a lot of these vehicles driving in, they're muddy, they'll have an automatic wheel sprayer and they believe that they're being covered. To me, I would much prefer to see a high-powered pressure washer there where they have the ability to clean it off, and then give it a good dose of disinfection upon entry.
And I would also be pushing producers and growers to have that point as close to the unit as possible. So, that vehicle control point, you wouldn't want to see it a 100, 200 meters away from the unit, because you're more likely to pick something up after it as well-
Greg Schonefield:
I see.
Jack Hughes:
... if that makes sense. The closer you can bring everything to the unit, the less pressure you've got from bringing it. So, the way we split things up is the rest of farm area, the general area, which is the area within the perimeter gate and the bird door and the shed door, that's where you're going to have all your feed bins and your entry doors to your sheds. Now what you'll see is people normally have a disinfection point there. So, they'll have a tub of disinfectant upon entering into the egg room.
Disinfection is a good process, but I think what it does to a lot of people is gives the placebo effect where they think, "Oh, disinfectant's there, we'll dip our feet and then we're okay." When actually most disinfections work on a 30-second contact time, so dipping your feet in and pulling your feet out really probably is effective as we were all there in the COVID time, when 30 seconds of washing your hands is the way we need to be moving.
Greg Schonefield:
Right. No, I wanted to get to that with some of the mindset things you have to talk about, because I do feel like one of the challenges here is you're fighting something invisible and that's tough. So yeah, the placebo effect, or you can almost feel like you're being superstitious. I'm just dipping my feet in this, is it really doing anything or not? You can't see or feel or hear or anything. I guess you really need to know. It takes training, I suppose, it takes knowledge of the products that you're using.
Jack Hughes:
Yeah, it's understanding, reading what is the change rate? Should we be changing it every two days? Do we need to change it every seven days? Most disinfectant are two or three days. Is it heavily soiled? Are we dipping mucky feet into it? We should never be putting dirty footwear into disinfectant. And if we're seeing producers, or we're seeing staff members putting dirty feet into disinfectant, then we need a secondary disinfection bucket there with just water in. So, we push for that on farms is we have a disinfection bucket with water and a brush, we clean off and then we disinfect.
Greg Schonefield:
Are shower-in facilities common in your experience, or in the UK?
Jack Hughes:
They're common on the high breed units. So on breeding units, yes, people will be showering in and showering out. Again, some of the showering units I've visited in roles along the time is, again, sometimes it's a placebo effect.
People will go through the showers, but then they'll walk back outside. Because they're coming on to a site clean, they believe they've cleaned themselves and we've brought everything out. We've cleaned everything and we're just on our unit. And this is where we push for as many changes as possible.
So again, when we get up to that egg room door, before we go and start collecting eggs, there should be another barrier there. We should be going into another set of shoes, which are just dedicated for that egg room. So, the likes of Crocs, slippers, something what's easily able to slip on and slip off, while you're moving around in that egg collection area. Because we do find in egg related units a lot of the time is you're in and you're in there for numerous amounts of hours, because you're going to be collecting your eggs, you're going to be spending time in there. So, they need to find something comfortable, something easy to wear.
And then when we proceed up to the live bird, we change our shoes again, to a shed specific pair of boots. And I guess this leads to the question, or the topic, around movement around farms, Greg, is if we have a shed dedicated pair of shoes, they should never leave that shed. Because the minute they move from that shed, the potential is you are going to move something to the next shed. And this can be AI, it can be salmonella, and it can be any of the other challenges around on farm.
Greg Schonefield:
I think it's important to pause on Jack's insight here. Managing cross contamination on farms, especially as operations scale up, is extremely hard. From changing shoes and using shed specific PPE, to addressing the risks posed by dust and dirt on clothing, every detail matters. And for larger farms with multiple sheds and diverse operations, maintaining these protocols, it requires both discipline and constant training to avoid biosecurity fatigue. It's a reminder that effective biosecurity isn't just about equipment, it's about consistent habits, fierce attention to detail, and often a farm-wide mindset shift to ensure diligence stays high.
And I understand that UK is maybe moving and more to free-range. Can you talk about some of the different challenges that presents?
Jack Hughes:
Yeah, so as a UK, as you probably already know, we are moving to the 2025 cage-free commitment, where retailers will not take any egg what's coming out of a cage unit as such. So, we're seeing a lot of cage units being turned into barn units, so they're putting the multi-tier systems in, sometimes one level, two levels, three levels high, and they're putting barn units in. And then a lot of the country are moving towards the free-range sector.
And as more people have moved to the free-range sector, we've moved away from the smaller 6000, 8000 units and we're now up to the 32,000s, 64,000s and larger. So again, the more birds, the more pressure, the more risk, the more we're opening ourselves up. And again with them being free-range, we're open to the elements, we are open to the wild bird sector, but there is plans we can put in place. We can put bird scarers out there. We can proof our sheds with meshing. We can put spikes on the roof vents, on the feed silos. We can bring that pressure down. But again, we are free-range.
And I think my main point to that is you've got a large area there for birds to potentially drop some muck on, what is the likelihood of another bird going, picking that up, against people bringing it in? We know wild birds do bring it in and the pressure of wild birds bringing it in, and for us it goes back to that containment. So, it's if we do have a problem, how can we not get it into another shed? How can we not move it to another unit?
Greg Schonefield:
Migratory birds are a well-known challenge for biosecurity, especially with the risks they carry during seasonal patterns. But what Jack is emphasizing here is that while we may not be able to completely control wild birds, we can take meaningful steps to mitigate their impact.
So, in the US, if you have avian influenza on one bird on your farm, you're depopulating the whole farm within, I think, 24 to 72 hours, something like that. Is that not the case in the UK?
Jack Hughes:
It is the case here in the UK, but again, and this is sometimes the mentality of people is, "Well, they're going to kill everything anyway, everything's going to get culled anyway, so what's it matter?" Well, what actually matters is how much you're going to be compensated back, because the government will only compensate you back on what is not effected.
Greg Schonefield:
In the US, when a producer suspects avian influenza, they're instructed to contact the state veterinarian to run tests. If those tests come back positive, the federal government steps in to indemnify the producer for the depreciated value of the unaffected flocks. They also take control of the cleanup and disposal process. Even with swift action, it often takes at least six to eight months to repopulate after the cleanup is complete.
So, if you have five sheds, five buildings is probably what we would say, and one is infected and you're able to keep the other four clean, you're going to be compensated for depopulating those four?
Jack Hughes:
Yeah. Where if you move it and it moves between the units, say you've got a 100,000 birds and you infect 80,000 of them, your compensation has just dramatically dropped.
Greg Schonefield:
So, getting hit in that first one, you don't get compensated at all?
Jack Hughes:
Again, it depends on how quick the government can get there, how quick can we get there, or depopulation companies get there. You will get paid back on what is alive. So, they will cull the birds out, regardless. They'll cull the whole site out, and if we turn up on one unit and it's at a mortality of 3000, then you're not going to get compensated for the 3000 which have died, but you'll get compensated on the remainder within that unit.
And that's what normally sparks people to go, "Here, let's stop movement. Let's try and contain. Let's be proactive, let's not be reactive." And I think as an industry that's what we've been a bit too much of in the past, is we've always been reactive. We've always reacted to the problem. Well, by the time you're reacting, the problem's already there. The potential of you've already moved it around or potentially moved it to another one of your sites, if you've got multiple sites, it's greatly increased.
Greg Schonefield:
Can you talk a little more about that, what it looks like to be proactive versus reactive?
Jack Hughes:
Yeah. I think it leads back to that physical biosecurity all year round, not just during times when you believe we're in an AI season, or there's salmonella knocking around. There's many factors that biosecurity plays into. Why are we using antibiotics on farm? What challenges are we seeing on farms? And numbers don't lie, I've quickly found that out. And in the past a lot of people have said, "Well, I've got a problem in one shed, so we'll treat everything on the farm." Why? Why are we treating everything? If you believe that issue's going to move from this shed to the next shed to the next shed, then why is it moving? What's moving it from that shed to the next shed to the next shed?
There is only numerous amounts of things on a farm what can move things. There's ourselves, there's rodents, and there's [inaudible 00:19:31], so your feathers blowing around. Each one of them can be mitigated.
Greg Schonefield:
So, then it's identifying that, recognizing, okay, when you really boil it down, it's somewhat simple. There's the three things that can really move things, and then how are you controlling those and how are you being proactive? Is there a mindset involved here? Because to me that gets back to you're fighting an invisible thing is very difficult mentally to every day have the fervency and to take every step that you know should take, because you can't necessarily feel or see that it's making a difference.
For me, it's almost like working out. Any given day, your body's not going to really change if you worked out or you didn't work out today, but you do it every single day and you see the results with time. I don't know if that's a good analogy for the kind of mindset it takes.
Jack Hughes:
I think the mindset comes down to, especially with producers and farm managers, is that being told what to do. We've been told we have to put these things in place, but with no real education behind why. Why are we putting these things in place? And the mindset comes from, "Oh, well, I just have to do it."
There's a lot of farms I've been onto, and again, it goes back to, "Well, they're just going to kill everything anyway, so what's it matter what we're doing while we're moving around farm? What's it matter if we're moving from this shed to that shed?" Well, if the practicality is simple, then we just do it. We all get up in the morning and we all put socks on, it's simple. We all get up in the morning, we all put a pair of shoes on. We all do the simple things quite easily, so why shouldn't it be the same in entering a shed? Why shouldn't it be the same in entering any farm area, that it's that simple you just do it?
If it's hard, you're just questioning, "Why am I doing this?" And that's where we work heavily with our customers to just work out what is easy to do on this farm? Because what's easy for you, Greg, might not be easy for me. What's easy for a big laying farm might not be easy for a small laying firm, and we always have to sit around the table and thrash it out, "Will this work?" "No, it won't work because of this."
Okay, well, at some place we're going to have to make a compromise. And if it means the health and the welfare of the birds, that is the main priority, then we have to do as a country and as an industry, we have to make sure that we are doing it properly.
Greg Schonefield:
As Jack will tell you, the cost of failing to contain an outbreak doesn't stop with the immediate loss of affected birds. It ripples through the entire operation, from reduced compensation to the spread of disease across buildings or even sites, every misstep amplifies the impact. That's why understanding biosecurity measures is critical. It's not just about compliance, it's about creating simple repeatable systems that work for each unique farm.
So, when you're brought on by a farm to help, where do you start?
Jack Hughes:
The main thing I always say to people is, "Let's go for a walk. Let's go for a walk and let's just see how you do it. Don't change anything, do not tidy this farm up, do not make it like I'm an auditor about to turn up, because I am not an auditor. I'm here to make sure you're safe and your business is safe, and let's just go for a walk. Let's sit back and watch what your staff do."
And nine times out of 10, you'll see one of them run out of the shed, and it's them little things, and then you go and have the conversations. We're not there to find a problem, we're here to see why it's not working.
Greg Schonefield:
Yeah. Well, I think part of the difficulty too is, so biosecurity is important, obviously, but if you're in the mind of the farmer, how many things are important? There's safety, there's making sure your equipment's running and making sure your people are showing up to work. There's probably a million things that can cross your mind.
Jack Hughes:
You're correct there, Greg. They've got a million things on their mind, but if that site was to become infected, them million things don't matter anymore. They do not matter, because now what you're worrying about is, "How am I going to pay my staff? Am I going to have to lay my staff off?" This becomes a bigger issue than the smaller things during the day. If we start with the basics, it's like saving the pennies, we'll save the pounds. It's let's start with the basics and the bigger stuff will look after... It'll all tie in.
Because nobody expects to get an outbreak. Nobody expects to go down with bird flu, or avian influenza, or salmonella, or to get an issue. But when it happens, it's devastating for everybody involved from the management level down to the person who's collecting them eggs, because it has a ripple effect through everybody. And this is something where we try and educate and to speak to people on the farms, to staff members. It's not just the farm that's at risk, it's your job as well as a staff member. This farm, if anything happens, it's shut down for quite a period of time.
Greg Schonefield:
But what about the emotional toll? When a farmer makes that call faced with the possibility of an outbreak, what's going through their mind and how does Jack approach supporting them through such a difficult moment?
Jack Hughes:
My phone is on 24/7, it doesn't sleep. I might be asleep, but if I can [inaudible 00:25:11] I'm awake and I can answer the phone, then I will be answering that phone, because what you find is they need somebody to speak to. It's a time when all control has gone out of your hands and it's a very emotional time for them. So, one thing we work heavily on with our customers is emergency response plans. So, that is every little bit of information needed by the government when they turn up on that farm. We make sure that is available at all times. It's there in a simple format, because the last thing you want when you're under a suspicion of a notifiable disease is to have somebody asking you question after question after question after question, because your mindset's all over the place.
So my initial phone call would be, they'd ring me up, they'd say, "We think we've got a problem." Right, let's stop everything. Let's stop all movement. Let's stop feed coming in. Everybody forgets about the feed, but actually if you've got enough feed there and you're 99% sure you have that problem, bringing more feed on is more cost. You can't use it, it has to be destroyed. It's about getting the plans in place to make sure everything is as accessible and as smooth a process as possible.
And for me it is, to our customers anyway, it is, "Let's just calm down. Let's take a step back a minute, and let's evaluate the situation, revert back to our emergency response plan and go through it step by step."
Greg Schonefield:
The feed one is kind of an interesting thing, but I would guess that's a little bit down the list. What are the first things you're doing when you step into a situation like that?
Jack Hughes:
Stopping anything coming in and going out of that unit. Staff members coming in in the morning, no. Stop. We need to get on the phone to people and on the phone to the government. Get your vet in. So, the vet would come in, the vet would raise it as a suspicion, that'd then get passed over to the government, and then we need to make sure... Again, it's stopping and making that traceability easier.
So, if we're seeing a widespread of people from that farm going to possible other farms, what all that does is extends the epidemiological report. It extends the investigation of where things may have been. So, is at that very point, it is stop all movements as quick as possible. Because for instance, if an egg wagon's been in that morning and taken eggs out, them eggs are probably in the packing station. If their eggs are in the packing station, that packing station is going to go under restriction. They're going to want to know where all of them eggs are. They're going to need to pull them eggs out and put them into quarantine.
Greg Schonefield:
Okay, so if you've done that, then you're saying veterinarian or an expert's going to come in to assess the problem, "Okay, is it what we suspect or not?"
Jack Hughes:
Yeah.
Greg Schonefield:
And say it's avian influenza, then what?
Jack Hughes:
They will be in contact with ourselves or depopulation companies and we'd hope to be on site within 24 hours.
Greg Schonefield:
Okay. And then somehow in there it's assessed which portion was actually infected, which portion wasn't.
Jack Hughes:
Yeah, so they would start with where they believe it started. Sometimes Greg, we've turned up on farm and there's no birds left.
Greg Schonefield:
Okay.
Jack Hughes:
Yeah. They've all died from the virus, it's moved through that fast. So, our priority is we get to the shed what's been deemed to be infected. Hopefully that's the only one what is infected and it's not subsequently moved through the other units. We'll call that one out and then we'll move down the remainder of the units.
Greg Schonefield:
And so, I guess hearing everything you're working with there, if you're the phone call in a moment of crisis, that must speak... And you said you may get a call from someone who's not a client, but I'm guessing it's a lot more effective when you're getting a call from someone who is, you've already got a level of same pageness. Can you speak to that?
Jack Hughes:
Our relationship with our farmers, again, is what we like to call a critical friend. We know we can ring them up on a... We've just recently had an outbreak last week here in the UK, and we're straight on the phone to all of our customers. "Are we okay? Is everything okay? What's going on?" And we're always, every day when I come into work, my first part of call is to look at outbreaks and wild bird outbreaks.
If I am seeing wild birds are being found in a place where I know I have a group of producers, I'm straight on the phone, "We are having wild birds found around your area, we need to make sure everybody is complying with how it should be." And again, being there at a time when they people the most. Farming, it's a lonely job. They are out there walking the sheds most days on their own, so we try and build up a great relationship with our customers as a one-on-one, ring us anytime you want, if there's anything you want to ask us about the industry, if there's anything we can tell you about the industry, or what's going to be the next process, or, for instance, with the outbreak last week we must've been on the phone to 20, 30 people within 10 minutes, "Right, something's happening around here."
And each of them phone calls could actually be saving them money. It could be saving them time. We had growers in that area who were due to cull broilers that morning. They weren't allowed to move. You're in the zone, you can't move. But if it wasn't from us notifying them, then they wouldn't have known until it was raised on the DEFRA website.
Greg Schonefield:
For me, that gets back to what we hit on earlier, which is that a farmer has a million things to worry about, so how can they give it that level of focus? And that's where someone like you and your team is really laser focused on this particular topic and can bring that focus to the table in your partnership.
Jack Hughes:
Any of my customers can ring me now and I will know exactly what they're talking about. They say, "I've got this in this shed." I will know that shed, that's what we try and do utmost is earn the respect and the gratitude and our understanding of how that farm actually works. It's about that building up that friendship, as well as having the ability to say, "Hold on a minute, that doesn't work. That's going to go wrong." Or, "This might work." It's just a bit of hand-holding for them.
It's having somebody at that time of crisis that they can just say, "It's all dealt with." Because I've seen it firsthand, it's devastating to watch somebody to have to go through that, at a time when everything's up in the air. Your mindset's everywhere and generally as a farm owner, you'll start driving to your other farm to make sure the problem's not happening there, and actually you are probably the person putting everything at risk.
Greg Schonefield:
Yeah, that's a good point that maybe your instincts aren't always serving you in a situation like this.
Jack envisions a future where biosecurity is embedded into every aspect of farming, from infrastructure design, with disease prevention in mind, to cutting edge technology for mapping and forecasting risks. But more than technology or infrastructure, Jack emphasizes mindset and discipline, staying proactive every single day to prevent the ripple effects of complacency.
For Jack and the team at Livetec, it's not just about managing outbreaks, it's about helping farmers recover, rebuild and thrive in a way that protects the industry. At the end of the day, biosecurity isn't just about compliance, it's about ensuring that farms can weather the toughest challenges. I want to thank Jack for sharing his insights. It was fascinating to learn how the UK is tackling biosecurity challenges. His point of view adds a valuable layer to our ongoing conversation about biosecurity and avian influenza.
Well, that brings me to my final question for you, Jack. How do you like your eggs prepared?
Jack Hughes:
I don't mind a poached one, Greg. I'm not going to lie, I do like a poached egg. I do eat quite a few eggs, to be fair.
Greg Schonefield:
I like the way you worded that, "I don't mind a poached egg."
Jack Hughes:
Well, you have to have poached egg on toast or poached egg with Parma ham.
Greg Schonefield:
Yeah.
Jack Hughes:
Yeah, but everybody overcomplicates a poached egg. All you need to do is chuck it in a frying pan, little bit of water, frying pan, because the minute you overcomplicate things, people just lose track and they go, "Oh, why are we doing that?"
Greg Schonefield:
I think that's very wise. Keep it practical, simple, stay after it.
And I want to thank you all as well. We appreciate your interest in Eggheads. We're super excited for this year, so happy 2025. Make sure you follow us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and connect with us on Instagram and LinkedIn too. If you want to be a guest or have topic ideas, please let us know. We're all eggs, I mean ears. Until next episode, I'm Greg Schonefeld. Talk to you soon.