Burnbrae Farms harnesses the sun

Burnbrae Farms is no stranger to sustainability and innovative egg products, and recently unveiled two new products focussed on renewable electricity. The company, which has operations in five provinces and ships coast to coast to coast, has been owned and operated by the Hudson family since its start in 1891. It began tracking its carbon footprint in 2018. 

The two new products are produced using 100 per cent solar energy: Naturegg Solar Free Range eggs and Naturegg Omega Plus Solar Free Range eggs. They’re both currently available in select grocery stores across Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada. The latter product is a source of EPA and DHA omega-3 fatty acids and lutein to promote brain, heart, immune system and eye health; these hens are fed a diet including corn, soy, vitamins, minerals, plus omega oils, flax seed and marigold extract.

Both types of eggs are being produced at the Burnbrae farm in Woodstock, Ont. where the company finished four new barns in 2019, one pullet barn and three free range layer barns. “The farm is the largest solar-powered egg laying farm in Canada, producing more power than it uses and sharing power with an adjoining Burnbrae farm,” says Burnbrae Farms Director Communication & Digital Marketing Sue Hudson. “The farm does not feed power to the grid.”

The solar panels are located on the roofs of the three layer barns. Battery banks are installed for power at night or during extended cloudy periods. The farm also has a backup diesel generator.

Grid electricity in Ontario is mostly renewable and emissions-free due to Niagara Falls and nuclear generating stations, with only 27 per cent coming from natural gas power plants. We asked Burnbrae about how much greenhouse gas emissions reduction the company is roughly achieving at this Woodstock farm by replacing the electricity it used to source from the grid electricity with solar generation. 

Sonya Fiorini, director of corporate social responsibility & community investment, could only say at this point that “company-wide, we track our greenhouse gas emissions at enterprise level and report these numbers in our annual sustainability report.” The new report became available in May. 

Barn design
The Woodstock farm’s layer barns are open-concept, equipped with private nests, perches and dust-bathing areas. “The hens have access to the outdoors, weather and environmental conditions permitting,” says Hudson. “The industry protects the birds by keeping them inside during spring and fall wild bird migration timeframes to protect from exposure to potential wild bird diseases.”

Every barn is designed starting with the view from the chicken, Hudson adds. “Consideration is given to optimal bird movement, feeder placement, drinking water location and nest access are among the most important requirements during design. Being that this farm is running on solar, special consideration was placed on energy-efficient ventilation design. Air flow was maximized, and fan motors were placed on energy-efficient, variable-frequency drives.” 

Indeed, all the barns’ motors, lighting and ventilation systems are high-efficiency and ensure they run using as little power as possible.

Fiornini reports that in 2019 and 2021, Burnbrae installed solar power at two other sites. “Burnbrae’s Ralos farm is 100 per cent solar-powered and our solar field on the original family farm in Lyn, Ont.,” she reports. “This solar field offsets electricity consumption and generates 500 kW of energy – enough to power 85 houses.” 

Nine years of solar in Alberta
While many other poultry operations in Canada have some solar panels, Green Acres Colony, a Hutterite Colony outside Bassano, Alta. with egg, poultry swine and crop production, has the largest solar array of any farm with poultry production in Western Canada. The Colony has a population of about 80 people.

Calgary-based SkyFire Energy did the installation, and has also completed two poultry barn roof solar generation installations in Alberta. “Klassen Farms installed a 175 kWdc system near Linden, Alta. in late 2016, which has produced nearly 1500 MWh of electricity during its lifetime,” says Greg Sauer, SkyFire Energy vice president of business development. “Brant Colony is a 25.5 kWdc system which was installed earlier in 2016 and has produced nearly 250 MWh of electricity in its lifetime.”

The Green Acres Colony array came about because the Colony has been operating an electricity-intensive plastics recycling facility. It started Crowfoot Plastics in 2010, where giant grain bags (over 5 million pounds of them every year) are recycled into pellets that are sold to make products like garbage bags. Because this process requires a great deal of electricity, the Colony decided many years ago to seek a loan for solar power generation. 

Financing of $4.8 million was secured and the ground-based solar array was finished in 2015. The 2-MW array has 7,686 solar panels, which covers the needs of the Colony’s poultry barns, swine barns, houses, other buildings and Crowfoot Plastics, and also enables electricity sale to the grid. Green Acres will reach ROI on the project in perhaps as little as one more year, which depends on past, current and future electricity prices in its part of Alberta.

Burnbrae’s future plan
As leaders in the Canadian poultry sustainability space, Burnbrae has many other plans to continue reducing its carbon footprint and otherwise reducing operational environmental impact. For about ten years, the company has had a volunteer expert ‘Green Team,’ whose members identify and promote projects that decrease the energy use for production, processing and grading, and that also decrease water usage and waste. Waste diversion and composting initiatives have led to a 20-per cent reduction in Burnbrae’s greenhouse emissions in recent years.

Right now, Fiorini notes that “we’re focused on increasing our use of renewable energy, exploring alternative fuels for our fleet, reducing natural gas use across our facilities and continually implementing new operational efficiencies.”  

Burnbrae is currently working to increase the efficiency of its fleet of tractor trailers, including the addition of side skirts and tracking idling time. The firm is also making plans to convert its sales fleet to electric vehicles.

“In 2024, we will install data loggers to track electricity use at our Mississauga facility to identify opportunities that will help us become more energy efficient,” says Fiornini. “Our intention is to roll this out to other facilities over time.”