Hinch Enterprises might be a relative newcomer to the world of pullet rearing, but it has quickly developed a knack for success. Michael Barker hears how a cohesive family unit is making it all happen
Even the most traditional of family farming businesses usually have a smattering of non-family members working in the company. The wide range of roles that are needed to perform a successful agricultural operation mean bringing in outside staff is often an inevitability that has to be addressed.
Hinch Enterprises, therefore, stands as something of an outlier in being run entirely by the Hinch family. Founded in 2002 by Ruth and Paul Hinch, the Rutland-based arable and poultry business has grown from 16,000 layers at launch to an impressive 214,000 today, backed by a 160,000-strong pullet business that has made such an impression in just four years that it was named Pullet Rearer of the Year at the 2025 National Egg & Poultry Awards this summer.
Hinch Enterprises may be a relatively young business, but its founders are far from new to the farming game. The couple are actually fifth-generation farmers, and were looking for a diversification opportunity when they started producing free-range eggs and opened a campsite just after the turn of the century. As the years passed, both the business and the family expanded, with two of Ruth and Paul’s three children having now graduated from Harper Adams and returned to work on the farm. Completing the set, grandad makes the occasional appearance too.
While some family businesses like to give dedicated titles and clear positions of responsibility to each incoming member, the Hinches simply expect everyone to roll their sleeves up and do a bit of everything. As well as giving all members broad understanding of the business, the philosophy has the double benefit of ensuring that anyone’s work can be covered if they are absent for any reason.
“We all have a very hands-on approach where there isn’t one job in the business that we can’t all do,” Ruth explains. “We all muck in and run it together.” Twenty-five-year-old Lucy adds that the whole family takes part in putting the birds up at night, putting chicks in and getting involved in every aspect of the work. “Mum always vaccinates, but she always needs a hand from one of us, so whoever is free at the time goes and helps,” she says. “Mum also does the rearing sheds seven days a week.”
As the workhorse at the centre of the operation, it’s a wonder Ruth finds any time to switch off. “It’s farming 24/7, but I think that’s the case for every farmer!” she laughs. “We’re very lucky – it’s a real family affair. We’ll be sat around the kitchen table chatting about stuff, and of course work is the dominant topic, but that’s just what a farmer does.”
No doubt one of those topics of discussion over the years has been the desire to develop a vertically integrated business, and that’s very much what the Hinch family has built. The pullet-rearing enterprise, added in 2021, was just the latest piece in the jigsaw and follows the construction a decade ago of a feed mill to produce the company’s own bird feed. Following the company’s ethos, the feed is milled from locally produced grain in a circular operation that reduces dependency upon the volatilities of the outside world. At a time when the commodity markets have suffered a series of seismic disruptions in recent years, it’s all about bringing more control and certainty to an aspect of the operation that keeps many a farmer up at night.
Pullet power
The decision to move into pullet rearing was largely driven by Lucy. “It started off when we realised that we wanted a better pullet that we knew had had every jab and had been reared as we wanted it,” Ruth explains. “It was something Lucy always wanted to do, and she came home one night from university four years ago and we told her we’d found a field that was perfect for her pullet-rearing shed. We bought the field and got planning permission quicker than we thought, so I stepped in and said ‘I’ll run it until you come home’.”
The advantage of building from scratch was that the Hinches had the opportunity to create a top-class facility with all the best equipment, and that meant installing a Big Dutchman multi-tier system. Deliberately matching the system in the laying shed, the approach means the birds’ stress is reduced when moving from one shed to the other as they experience similar surroundings and feed, and the approach has paid off handsomely with impressive weights that are nearly a week ahead of where they would be in unmatched systems.
“The system lends itself to growing good birds with good uniformity,” Ruth explains, “and I also think that because I’m there seven days a week I can instantly spot any little change in the birds.” A data-driven approach to nutrition additionally allows the family to react quickly to any issues and adjust the feed accordingly.
Elaborating on the reasoning behind the investment in pullet rearing, Lucy says it was very much a case of wanting to take more control and know exactly what they were getting. No farmer can control what it is paid for its eggs, but it can try to take greater ownership over the costs that go into producing them in the first place. “It was a natural step because at that point we were already milling our own feed, so the next step was the pullets,” she adds. Lucy has since taken on responsibility for pullet orders, audits and liaising with vets, breeding reps and nutritionists. She’s also collating production data and making sure everything is on track.
Being so new to the pullet-rearing side, the family have had to get to grips with a range of issues that will no doubt be very familiar to those operating in the sector for some time. “I think demand is quite challenging right now,” Ruth says. “People are trying to keep their birds for as long as they possibly can. I’m on quite a strict 15-weeks-in, three weeks out for washing, 15-weeks-in cycle. So it’s quite a strict rota and if somebody wants to keep theirs a little longer it means I probably can’t rear for them next time. I’m pretty full when it comes to rearing space. And I think the situation is going to get worse with avian flu. Getting the right breed is also becoming more of a challenge and you’re having to book your birds earlier and earlier. You really struggle to get the breed that you want now unless you book six months in advance.”
The good news, for the company at least, is that there’s strong demand for pullets at present thanks to the increasing number of laying sheds going up across the country. Having a newly installed top-of-the-range multi-tier system leaves the business well placed for new and changing legislation, and while it’s too soon to talk about expanding the pullet operation, the Hinches are not ruling it out either.
As part of its overall commitment to detail, Hinch Enterprises puts a high focus on biosecurity, operating a one-person-per-shed policy and restricting movement from shed to shed. Sustainability is boosted by biomass boilers, borehole water and solar panels on the hen sheds, and Lucy is just starting the process of measuring the farm’s carbon footprint.
Industry involvement
With such an all-encompassing job, it would be easy for the family’s focus to remain squarely on their own farm. Lucy, however, has embraced wider industry affairs, taking on a role as a director at BFREPA, programme secretary at her local Young Farmers’ Club, and joining the NFU’s Poultry Industry Programme that builds skills and knowledge for young people. “Getting involved means getting our name out there a bit more, and you learn a lot about what’s going on beyond our family farm,” Lucy says. “You can learn so much from other people, and you also get to hear about current and future legislation. I also joined because we were always moaning about egg prices around the kitchen table and so I thought I should go out and do something about it! So I joined BFREPA to try to have a say and help shape the industry for the future.”
As for the future of Hinch Enterprises itself, with Ruth, Paul and their children Lucy and Christopher already in the business, could there yet be room for another? Their other daughter is currently training to be a vet, so it would be a satisfying extra layer if she ended up doing work for the farm too.
Lucy has already been outspoken on social media in her criticism of the government’s controversial new inheritance tax rules, which she says will affect their business “drastically”. “Mum and dad have spent so much time and money [building the business] and it’s really not right when people have put so much into it,” she stresses.
It’s just one more frustrating issue that poultry farmers have to grapple with in 2025, and one the whole farming industry has united in protesting head on. And while such challenges will doubtless continue to come thick and fast, you can be sure that the Hinch family will tackle them together as it continues to make its mark on the sector.