Sizing of the backyard and micro-commercial egg production in Australia

Sapere was engaged by our long-standing client Australian Eggs to develop a methodology and approach for estimating the level of production in the backyard (households raising less than 15 hens and whose level of production is typically driven to meet personal consumption demands) and micro-commercial (small-scale operations with up to 1,000 hens) segment of the egg industry (collectively referred to as the ‘informal sector’).

This involved a desktop review of existing assessments of the informal sector and consultation with a range of industry stakeholders to collate best estimates of the potential size of the informal sector in each stakeholder’s relevant market. Insight from the desktop review and consultations formed the basis for the construction of multiple models, which we extrapolated to the national scale to produce Australia-wide estimates.