Mullagh egg company in design win

The unique packaging of an innovative new product launched by a free range egg farm in Meath has been chosen as a winning exhibit by the world body for professional design. The new O'Egg Free Range White Egg packaging from Mullagh egg company, Clonarn Clover, has been selected for display by Icograda Galleria International Design. "We were delighted to hear about the win. It's great to have some recognition because a lot of hard work went into creating and launching the O'Egg brand," said Clonarn Clover managing director, Margaret Farrelly. Clonarn Clover was founded in 1988 by husband and wife team, Leo and Margaret Farrelly, on their family farm in Mullagh. The Farrellys pioneered free range egg farming in Ireland and are now leaders in the egg industry. The farm originally started out with just 150 hens but quickly expanded, and is now supplied by some 120,000 hens. "The Irish egg sector is traditional and has been dominated by brown eggs since the 1940s but we were keen to innovate. Two years ago, I hit on the idea of selling white eggs," said Margaret. "Before World War II, there was a wide variety of hens and eggs in Ireland incuding white eggs but they fell out of fashion when battery farmers began to mass-produce brown eggs. "It took two years to get the project off the ground because, initially, we had a problem sourcing white hens but, last September, we got our first batch," she said. While the hens got busy laying eggs, Margaret and her team at Clonarn Clover began working on the design concept for the O'Egg product with Dublin-based designer, Lorraine Carter of Personal Design. "The majority of eggs on the market are packaged in pale green boxes. We wanted something that would make a strong impact on supermarket shelves," she added. "We already have a product in blue packaging so we decided on pink because it's a really strong colour. "Shortly afterwards, a marketing guru who saw the pink packaging suggested that we get in touch with Action Breast Cancer. "Having been touched by cancer at a very early age - my sister was just 18 years-old when she died after being diagnosed with a brain tumour - I thought it was a fabulous idea," said Margaret. Clonarn Clover approached Action Breast Cancer and offered to donate a percentage of their profits to the charity and to promote Action Breast Cancer by using its pink ribbon logo on the O'Egg packaging. Action Breast Cancer took Clonarn Clover up on the offer and, after a lot of hard work, the O'Egg Free Range White Eggs in the bold, eye-catching pink packaging hit the supermarket shelves at the end of February. Clonarn Clover is the largest dedicated supplier of free range eggs in the country. The company supplies the Musgrave Group with its free range eggs under the SuperValu and Centra brand names. The company also supplies free range eggs to Spar, Mace, Costcutters, Londis, Fallon & Byrne and Donnybrook Fair in Dublin. It has also recently begun supplying free range eggs to Tesco Ireland.