One of the leading figures of the egg industry, Aled Griffiths OBE, has died at the age of 95.
His son Elwyn told PB he had passed away at home, where he wanted to be. The family will announce service arrangements when details are confirmed.
Griffiths was born in Penmaenmawr, and following graduation from Aberystwyth University College of Wales, he and his late wife Olwen started farming in 1955 close to the Welsh border in Shropshire.
He founded Griffiths Family Farms, starting with Oaklands Farm in 1969, and transformed it into a vertically integrated, highly automated leader in egg production. His leadership has influenced technological innovation, animal welfare standards, and sector-wide modernisation in the UK egg industry.
After a Nuffield Farming Scholarship in 1973, he modernised egg production techniques by adopting US automation innovations, ultimately helping his business become one of the UK’s largest egg producers.
Among the many has won many award were an OBE for his Services to the Poultry Industry in 1993. He received the International Egg Commission’s most prestigious award, the Denis Wellstead Memorial Trophy, for ‘The International Egg Person of the Year’ in 2018, together with the British Egg Industry’s highest award, the ‘Peter Kemp Award for Outstanding Contribution to the British Egg Industry’. In 2022 received Lifetime Achievement Awards at the National Egg & Poultry Awards and at EPIC.
EPIC was one of his last appearances at a large conference, where he told delegates: “I have been lucky in my life as I have thoroughly enjoyed and continue to enjoy everything I do, particularly helping young people to succeed within the industry.”