Eggheads

The Weaver family has been in the specialty egg game for a long time, and they've seen incredible success with their brand, Westfield Egg Farm. A big reason for that success has been their continued willingness to innovate, including a unique model that holds their contract farmers to extremely high standards, but also gives them the autonomy to run their operations as they see fit. 

Our guest today is George Weaver IV — G4 for short — and he's in charge of sales and marketing at Westfield. G4 gives us a glimpse into the relationship between retailers and specialty egg producers, the ways Westfield tries to differentiate themselves on the aisle, and the importance of supporting small family farms as the industry continues to consolidate.  

What a year it's been for Eggheads. We've featured so many new voices and interesting perspectives from throughout the egg world, and gained a whole bunch of new listeners along the way. 

Today, Greg shares his thoughts on all of the people and issues we've highlighted in 2025, and what you can expect from the show as we move into 2026. 

Happy New Year! 

Coke Anderson has had one of the most storied careers of anyone in the egg business. She started with a 30,000-bird flock, which would eventually grow into M&C Anderson pullets, a 1700-acre farm that rears nearly 5 million pullets annually. She would also become the first woman to lead the American Egg Board, and helped the organization navigate through some turbulent times. 

Today, Coke joins us in person for the inaugural interview in our new Eggheads studio. We get into her incredible story, her unique approach to leadership, and her thoughts on some of the biggest issues facing egg producers today. We also get into what makes her feel nervous and hopeful for the future of the industry. 

Today, we're returning to our special scramble format and welcoming to the show three legends of the egg industry. We have Mark Kleinsmith, formerly the National Sales and Marketing Manager for Lubing USA, Steve Kuykendall, formerly a Regional Manager for Lubing USA, and Craig England, who spent decades working on the breaker and grader side of the industry. 

These three old friends have a combined 125 years of industry experience, and they join us to reflect on how the industry has changed over the course of their careers, and to share stories from back in the days when things were a little less corporate, and a bit more rough and tumble. 

'In-ovo' sexing, or determining the sex of an egg before it hatches, has long been seen as a potential solution to the problem of male chick culling at hatcheries. Methods of in-ovo sexing have historically been invasive and difficult to apply at scale, but today we're spotlighting a company with some revolutionary tech that could change that. 

Jennifer Volz is the Head of Global Business Development at Orbem, a Germany-based company using MRI technology and AI algorithms to make mass in-ovo sexing achievable for only a few cents per egg. Orbem's tech is already in use at several hatcheries in Europe, and Greg caught up with Jennifer at their Houston office, where they're quarterbacking the company's expansion into the US. 

Jennifer delves into the scale of the male chick culling issue, how Orbem's tech aims to solve it, and why their success could have implications that extend far beyond the egg industry. 

Steve DeWeerdt, and his parents before him, grew the DeWeerdt poultry farm from a small family business into a massive egg production and processing operation. But when Michigan passed a law mandating that all egg producers in the state go cage-free, Steve was faced with a choice: adapt or close up shop. 

Ultimately, Steve decided to make the transition, and today he takes us through that long process from start to finish, including the race against time to get their farm switched over, and the steep learning curve they faced when they ultimately got there. 

Unfortunately, not all eggs that get produced make it onto supermarket shelves. Producers try to sort out eggs that are broken or misshapen, hatcheries discard infertile eggs, and breaker operations need to deal with broken yolks or excess fluid left in shells. So what happens to that stream of waste egg products that still have nutritional value, but are deemed to be unfit for human consumption? 

Ingmar Middelbos is the Global R&D Director for Animal Nutrition at Symrise Pet Food. Symrise partners with producers across the US and abroad to collect discarded egg products that would otherwise end up in landfills, and turn it into nutritious food for pets. 

Ingmar joins us today to discuss the origins of the inedible egg business, why the industry creates such a consistent waste stream, and the potential future applications for inedible egg products. 

After nearly a year and a half of hearing his voice on Eggheads, we figured you might be curious about who Greg is and why in the world he decided to start a podcast about the egg industry. Well today, we hope to give you some insight, by flipping the script and putting Greg in the guest's seat. 

Stepping in as host for the day is Dr. Kay Russo. Kay's always been willing to lend us her scientific expertise when it comes to bird flu, and in this episode she uses that same academic rigour to tease out the details of Greg's journey from accounting to agricultural construction. 

Today, we hear from Greg about what initially pushed him to found Ag Installers, the mistakes that helped him learn along the way, and what inspires him to keep Eggheads going.

At only 25 years old, Cole Luthman is the Lead Service Technician at Cooper Farms, responsible for overseeing five out of their 8-million total birds. And as if that wasn't keeping him busy enough, Cole recently decided to start his own barn and become a contract grower himself. 

Cole's journey into the poultry world started at 13, when he began working with one of Cooper's contract growers. Since then, he's won an FFA award for proficiency in poultry production in the state of Ohio, obtained a degree in agriculture, and helped Cooper's growers navigate through a devastating HPAI outbreak. 

Today, Cole joins us to discuss his unique path into the poultry world, his day-to-day life as a Service Technician and contract grower, and what other young people can learn from his journey into the ag industry. 

Logan Webster has worn many hats in his life: he grew up on a broiler farm in South Arkansas, he worked in PR for Tyson Foods, he interned for a US Senator in Washington, and now, he's an entrepreneur working on an app that could prove to be an indispensable resource for growers everywhere. 

We've talked a lot about the broiler industry on this show, but for the first time we're featuring a voice from inside of it. Logan's going to walk us through his family's experience working as contract growers, the different challenges that people face within that industry, and how his new app 'Chicken Sheet' aims to make their lives a little bit easier.