Hillside Poultry Farm is not telling the truth

[kaya's farm]

i do know for a fact that he used to have a decent amount of chickens, I do know that now he has NO chickens and probably buys from that factory that is the largest supplier of abused animal products.(that is speculation) I know this for a fact and live in a very small town and could pull in his driveway and see but have also called him to get some info. Trying to stay calm and not hostile was very hard.

I sell Seven dozen eggs a week, if we dont use them sometimes more. I have turned a few potential costomers away casue all my eggs are spoken for and i just got 40 baby chicks so i can sell more eggs. I dont want to be understood iIwant people to know they are not buying eggs from the cute little country town of Wilmington Vt. I am an advocate for buying local and KNOWING WHAT YOU SPEND YOUR MONEY ON! This is very important to me and my kids, i work hard to teach them that. A dollar spent means more than what you could buy with it, we pay attention to who we give our money to.

I feel if he didnt have cartons that say Hillside Poultry Farm wilmington vermont and represented his 1.25 product correctly he could sell eggs till the cows come home. Hilside Egg Distributors would be accurate in my opinion.

Thanks to those who gave me advise about steps i can take in order to pursue this matter with some sort of athority. Not that so much is done by authority to help out people who realy go thru the trouble of caring for the animals they have and product they provide.

 

[HennysMom]

I honestly dont think there's really anything you can do - legally or otherwise - unless he is reselling store bought eggs under his farms name and you can prove that (and even then I dont know if you have a case) and here's why:

Farmers markets/Pumpkin Patches:

Do you know how MANY "farmers markets" are not locally grown but trucked in from other areas and vendors? BIG COMPANY vendors? Case in point: those side of the road farmer stands - and/or markets - been to so many and have asked point blank where did the food come from? I've been told SOOO many times "we truck it in" or.. *gasping here* "From Walmart" from people that work there and then tell me "dont buy it..its not from an actual local farm"

They mark it up for a profit, even if its 5cents - and people believe it because Joe Schmo is standing there looking like a farmer

Pumpkin patches - same thing. Local one down the road USED to grow their own years ago, until it became more profitable to truck them in from Mexico for less than half the cost to grow them!!

They put them out in the field making it look like they are "freshly cut" - yet where are all the pumpkin plants at?

Nowhere to be found.

So the point is - these people are reselling products they paid for legally - at a profit - also legal. I dont know if you can do anything about him re-selling eggs unless he states they are Organic. You cannot state they are organic because that requires USDA grading.

I now go to actual farms that I can SEE the produce growing when my own garden isnt ripe yet.. or better yet - pick my own so I know where its from.

 

[CovenantCreek]

kaya's farm :

I feel is misleading his coustomers into beleiveing he has a farm and sells his eggs. Every place I stop and ask about local eggs refers to Hillside.......... he drives to get factory eggs and resells with a local vermont address on the carton.

If you can prove that he is driving out of state to buy eggs from a factory farm, then the people who think they're buying locally produced eggs should be informed of the truth -- a letter to the editor, or tip to an investigative reporter, might be in order. If his cartons indicate that the eggs come from Vermont but it can be proven they don't should, at the very least, require a change in his labeling and marketing. Calling them farm fresh isn't wrong if they were fresh when he picked them up at the farm. The term may convey a sense of "home grown" rather than factory produced, but technically a farm is a farm.

I guess I would suggest finding other local farms that don't sell as many eggs as they could because of this guy's practices and creating some kind of local coalition to promote the value of locally grown eggs (or produce in general). Take the offense by promoting what makes local growers better to deal with -- have a farm open house day or something so all the local growers can be visited and people will start to ask why they can't visit his local farm.​

 

[kaya's farm]

im not sure what happens at Farmers markets in your state but this is Vermont and some say we are behind im happy for the ways of Vermont.
Farmers markets are very big here and you would never ever get away with selling mass produced produce or even another local farmers produce. They have very strict guidleines! I am willing to at least look into what can be done.

 

[kaya's farm]

i maight also say he does admitt to not having local eggs but you would never know by looking at the carton

 

[ninjapoodles]

I would concentrate on the labeling. Doesn't your state have specific labeling guidelines for egg cartons? Mine does. One thing that I'm sure of, here, is that you cannot label your eggs "farm fresh" unless they come from your own hens, and the address has to match what's on your label. That alone would nab your guy.

Research your state's labeling requirements for selling farm fresh eggs. I'd bet you've got a violation, because if you're correct, then regardless of where he's getting them, they're not coming from the address on his label, right?

 

[HennysMom]

Quote:
Ninja... just wanted to let you know.. your dog terrifies me

 

[kaya's farm]

This is a carton i ended up with because all of my egg buyers recycle.

I also cant seem to find a Chicken Farmers of America but am still looking around the internet for other organizations of the like.

 

[ninjapoodles]

Quote:
Is this better?

 

[HennysMom]

Hmmm I dont know.. I've ran a search and apparently ALOT of VT companies (restaurants, B&B's, etc) use this guy along with many others... he's a listed registered business it seems. Most places like this wont use local companies unless they check them out - not always..but most of the time from what I've seen.

scroll through:

http://www.putneyinn.com/dining-local.html

http://www.riverviewcafe.com/links.html

listed in many sources too (yellow pages, white pages)

there is also another Hillside Poultry Farm out of Shippensburg PA - are you sure he doesnt own that one too and just gets his eggs shipped from there up to VT?

It's really a tough call - as its hard to say. Cartons can be made up from dealers that sell egg cartons - but the cost to do so is quite high for custom cartons, then egg purchases just to turn around and sell them for $1.25. He'd have to be getting eggs for pennies on the dozen, and cartons for about 10 cents each in order to be making that much of a profit I'd think.

I cant even get a carton for less than .25 cents a piece and thats if I find them on sale or clearance. Normally I pay about .30 cents per container.