The Urban Farm Podcast with Greg Peterson Kevin Van Eekeren on Store Bought vs Home Raised Eggs
226: Kevin Van Eekeren on Store Bought vs Home Raised Eggs
Recognizing eggs from lovingly raised hens and factory raised, regardless of labeling.
In this podcast: We get to know the personal motivations behind Kevin Van Eekeren, a tactical advisor and egg farmer with a focus on clear visioning 10 years into the future. He tells us how his experience developing tactical training has helped him with his farm. He also explains about some of the labeling misperceptions of eggs, and why there is such a marked difference in eggs depending on how the hens are raised.
Kevin is not your typical farmer. He was a SWAT team logistics officer; started Fulcrum Tactical- a charity that specialized in training SWAT teams nationwide; and couple years ago he started Fulcrum Investing- a venture capital fund investing in startups. He most recently started hosting a podcast called State of Logic which has a planned release date of mid 2017 with a duel focus on both the startup world and topics that affect our world, and not just in business.
In the middle of it all Kevin started Fulcrum Farms with just 28 chickens raised for personal use which gave him 20 eggs a day. So, of course he started giving eggs away and that is when restaurants and families started offering to buy them. To meet demand, he grew the operation to what it is today, 30 pigs, a few hundred quail, 100 ducks, 100 chickens, a few cows and two goats named Thelma and Louise. They quickly learned the best practice was to follow Joel Salatin's example and use the nitrogen cycle for their own benefit.
Now they keep most of their animals rotating constantly to give them new pasture to graze and allow the land they just grazed to rest. Their biggest seller are his eggs and the reason is clear, there is a visual and taste difference between their eggs and those bought at the store.
Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/04/25/kevin-van-eekeren/ for more information, photos and links on this podcast and to hear from our other great guests.