Artificial intelligence is being introduced by Scotland’s second biggest egg producer as part of a £2.4 million investment to increase productivity.

Iain Chapman, managing director of Farmlay, said the new technology is being shipped over from the Sanovo Technology Group factory in Holland. 

The technology will be included in grading equipment that Farmlay will start using from January. Its algorithms can analyse high-resolution images of eggs to spot any with cracks or deficiencies.

“Our current egg grader is giving us 500 cases an hour and this second one will give us 400, so almost double our output,” he says. 

“We were at a crossover as to whether – with demand for eggs at such a high – to simply run our existing grader for longer hours. However, doing that wouldn’t have been a long-term solution and could have been risky with no back up machine if there was a problem. 

“We have been keenly watching the research and development going on and the Sanovo machine we are getting has been proven to be amazingly efficient, using AI to analyse high-resolution images of the eggs.” 

The business, which supplies Aldi, Lidl, Morrisons and Spar with its own – and a growing stable of contract producers’ eggs – is still based at the family’s Cockmuir Farm, near Strichen, Aberdeenshire, which has expanded from the original 130 to 2,500 acres. 

Latest egg industry data from global shopper and consumer behaviour experts Kantar Worldpanel shows that between 2004 and 2023, retail egg sales increased by more than 20%.