From a humble flock of 40 hens at age nine, today 25-year-old Josh Murray presides over an egg empire comprising 165,000 hens that ships 65,000 dozen a week – and now his first truck!
A young man bounces from his chair to meet me as I enter a small office on a chicken farm in the foothills of the Macedon Ranges. He’s blonde-haired, bright-eyed, and instantly recognisable. In fact, if you live in Victoria, you’ve probably had breakfast with him.
His face is on display in Coles and Woolworths supermarkets across Melbourne, and he even stared back at me from the fridge shelf this morning with a toothy grin.
I meet Josh Murray, the founder of Josh’s Rainbow Eggs, in the site office at the original of his two farms, surrounded by posters, cartons and cut-outs with his face on them. The guy is everywhere.
“Do you ever get sick of seeing yourself around here?” I ask, pointing to a 22-pallet refrigerated trailer plastered with the distinctive branding.
“Ha, I honestly don’t see it anymore,” he says, laughing. “I think I just block it out, because I’m so used to it!”
We’ve donated more than three million eggs, but that’s only since we started counting in 2017 … we’re on track to donate a million eggs this year alone!
He started the company at just nine years old with a humble flock of 40 hens. Today, at 25, he presides over an egg empire that ships 65,000 dozen a week, and his flock has grown to an astonishing 165,000 hens.
Even more impressive is just how many eggs Josh gives away to charities like Oz Harvest, Second Bite and other community initiatives around Victoria. He even donates 20 cents from every carton of eggs he sells – with total proceeds well into the deep six figures.
“We’ve donated more than three million eggs, but that’s only since we started counting in 2017,” he tells me, as he opens the live spreadsheet that tracks his donations in real time. “Oh, actually, we’re on track to donate a million eggs this year alone!”
He clearly wasn’t aware of quite how many eggs he’d given away this year, surprised by the number. But, the surprise fuelled jubilation, not concern for the bottom line, as he announced the achievement to other workers in the room.
Josh has become the poster boy for sustainable, free-range farming in Australia, but he isn’t your typical farmer. He wasn’t born into this life. Given his voracious appetite for charity – seemingly giving money away – maybe that’s a good thing.
“I don’t think I could do this if we couldn’t give back,” he says, when asked why he gives so many of his precious eggs away. “You can build a business, make money, that’s all well and good, but I want to give back and leave a legacy. In fact, there are far easier ways to make money, I’m sure, so this is definitely about more than that.”
Josh has become the poster boy for sustainable farming, but he isn’t your typical farmer
Josh was a city kid from Melbourne, the son of two academics, who found himself on a 115-acre hobby farm in Cherokee, Victoria, in early 2006 – armed with a curious mind and a lot of spare time. Within a few years, he’d started selling eggs at the farmers’ markets in the Macedon Ranges and before long he was shifting close to 150 dozen a week.
His early endeavours fed his obsession with Star Wars Lego, but by his teen years it was all about the chickens, and of course, the eggs.
“I never wanted this to be ‘Josh’s Eggs’ by the way,” he laughs, revisiting my comment about his face being everywhere around Melbourne. “I wanted ‘Rainbow Eggs’, because of the multi-coloured eggs my chickens laid. But Mum thought, from the perspective of the customer, I was the one who loved the chickens, so it had to be my name. We met in the middle with ‘Josh’s Rainbow Eggs’.”
Josh’s mother is Dr Tamsyn Murray, the company’s CEO and his partner in crime, and the two share an enviable working relationship. They do act like relatives at points, but there’s a mutual respect, a symbiosis as they take turns explaining their egg operation to me.
A former researcher with a PhD in micronutrient malnutrition, who spent time working in the Peruvian Amazon, Tamsyn (or Tam, as Josh calls her) is the strategic mind behind Josh’s boundless passion.
It’s a true family affair, Josh tells me, with his brother Jack driving the delivery vehicles when he’s not studying, and his sisters Jemma and Jessica are both involved too – Jess is the company’s social media manager and Jemma helps on the farm during school holidays and on weekends. His dad, Dr James Murray, is fairly hands off these days, as he runs his own workplace health and safety company, but is still a key piece of the puzzle.
I’m the one who works on the machines, the one who does the balance sheet, the one who drives the trucks if nobody else can. But I can’t do it all. I’m trying to learn how to stand back and manage.
Together, the Murrays have built something extraordinary, taking the fight to the big players with a new-age regenerative farming philosophy that puts the birds first and charity at the top of the priority list, and as of recently, they’ve dipped their toes into the transport world … hence our visit.
Circle of life
While his family’s move to the country spawned an early egg obsession, it was a course with renowned American agriculturalist Joel Salatin that exposed a young Josh to the concept of regenerative farming. The idea was simple: instead of keeping chickens in a fixed shed surrounded by dirt, you regularly move the shed to fresh ground.
“It’s the best way to do free-range, without a doubt,” Josh says, his eyes lighting up. “You move them constantly, allowing the land to regenerate. The chickens get fresh pasture, the land gets fertilised, and you don’t get a build-up of disease.”
But nine-year-old Josh didn’t have the capital for a state-of-the-art mobile shed, so he improvised. He and his dad James used hay bales to build temporary straw coops, moving them by hand when the ground grew tired.
“I’d push them around, one by one,” he says. “I didn’t have money for fencing, so I used what we had … and that was hay!”
Today, Josh uses massive, high-tech mobile sheds that he and Tamsyn designed specifically for their operation. The custom-made 90-tonne sheds are self-sufficient, with solar power, and can easily be moved to fresh grass every few months. But the philosophy hasn’t changed.
Josh’s Rainbow Eggs is a family affair, with Josh’s mum Dr Tamsym Murray the company’s CEO
The sheds themselves are a design that Josh and Tamsyn spent many years refining, starting with small home-built tin enclosures and growing to 40-metre behemoths. In fact, they’re getting larger as the egg business expands with the latest being 60 metres in length.
“Together we designed this movable concept and it’s really quite different to anything else,” Tamsyn tells me, as I admire the sheds. “They’ve got solar, and everything inside is automated so I can see it all on my phone.”
The sheds even automatically open and close each day, as the chickens migrate indoors as the sun sets, and out again as morning light spills through the windows.
In fact, the 3kW off-grid solar setup means the chicken side of the farm draws no grid power and a larger 15kW system back at the main office powers the rest of the property.
“The only real emissions are in the transport, so the grain trucks that deliver here or our vehicles,” Tamsyn tells me. “We are seriously looking at electrification of our transport though, in the future.”
It was enough to snag Josh the 2019 Victorian Young Achiever Award for Environmental Sustainability, which is another piece of his legacy. But the idea of a zero-emission farm is a slow burner, he and Tamsyn remind me, as they’ve still got work to do.
They’re really curious animals and each one is different. If you spend enough time with them, you see it. Some are leaders, some are followers, some are trouble makers.
Walking the farm with Josh and Tamsyn, their setup makes intelligent use of the 120 acres on offer, and it has an upmarket feel. It isn’t dirty, smelly or in any way confronting – as so many are. It’s a pleasant place to be.
The Macedon Ranges provide a stunning backdrop, but it’s the low, contented clucking of thousands of hens that grabs my attention. They are curious, scurrying to inspect us as we approach their enclosure.
“They’re really curious animals and each one is different,” Josh insists, bending down to scoop one up. “If you spend enough time with them, you see it. Some are leaders, some are followers, some are trouble makers.”
Guarding the 5,000-odd birds in each of the 13 enclosures is a squad of Maremma sheep dogs. These hulking white hounds are the security detail, trained to keep foxes and even birds of prey at bay. They bark at us, before turning to putty as we enter … establishing that we indeed aren’t foxes in disguise.
“We rehome them,” Josh explains. “A lot of them are failed pets. People buy them because they look like fluffy polar bears, but they bark at everything. They’re bred to guard, basically.”
It’s a harmonious relationship and one that perfectly encapsulates the ethos here. While the concept of moveable enclosures is simple, so too is the security solution.
Guarding the 5,000-odd birds in each of the 13 enclosures is a squad of Maremma sheep dogs
I’m curious to see what it’s like inside the shed, but Tamsyn warns me the chickens will surround me. I’m literally engulfed as I enter, their curiosity driving them towards me like a magnet.
I didn’t realise chickens had so much personality, and when I tell Josh he laughs. “Oh, they’ve got HEAPS of personality! Sometimes when I take one to a supermarket to meet customers, I’ll get to know it across the day and, like I said, they’re all a little bit different.”
He no longer names them, though, a rule he established long ago.
“Back when I was 12, there was a year where every chicken that I named during a calendar year met an unfortunate demise due to disease,” he tells me, with genuine concern in his voice. “It was Marek’s disease which is harder to deal with when you’re just starting out so, out of principle, and to never put a chicken through that again, I haven’t named a chicken since!”
In case it isn’t yet abundantly clear, Josh really, really cares about his chickens. Add that to the list of things that make him a standup fella, and a producer that deserves every dollar he makes (or donates).
Inside the sheds, Tamsyn’s unique perch design allows the chickens to live as they did originally – long before they were farmed. She’s proud of the design, when I ask about it, and it’s clear the hens love it.
Tam and I come to work to engage and to give back, not really as much to make money.
“They were originally jungle birds, so they lived in the trees … before we domesticated them,” she tells me, yelling over the squawking chickens. “That’s why they love the perches, it’s instinct.”
Driving back to the main office, we pass a grain truck that’s filling the silos that sit out the front of each moveable shed. It’s the first truck we’ve seen here, but it won’t be the last. While the chickens roam freely, pecking at the ground — and my legs – feed tops up their diet.
Down the line
Over at the grading shed, which sits alongside the main office, the energy shifts from the earthy calm I’d come to enjoy. This is where the eggs are sorted, graded, packaged and sent off for delivery and it’s a well-oiled operation.
A state-of-the-art grading machine, which consists of an intricate conveyor belt with suction cups, scales and sensors, processes the eggs at a dizzying speed. It washes, weighs, checks for cracks, and sorts them into cartons.
Team members man each section of the line, and Josh wanders around showing us how it all works, but he also checks it’s all functioning as it should be. He ran the grading shed by himself for years, and he knows the machinery like the back of his hand.
“I’ve spent a lot of time in here, as it is today and back when we had a basic grading setup with a scale that would sort the eggs,” he tells me, his eyes darting around the room. “I’d literally fix this machine if something went wrong … it has a really good manual, actually.”
A state-of-the-art machine washes, weighs, checks for cracks, and sorts the eggs into cartons
He then leans down to look at the conveyor belt.
“I can tell you right now there was an issue with that sensor this morning,” he tells me, pointing at a small electronic part. “I’ve learnt how this thing works, I know how to sort out these little issues.”
Josh is definitely a control freak, but that’s clearly part of his success. He’s pedantic in the grading room, more strict with his egg selections than the other workers. He insists that some of the eggs are seconds, when they look perfect to me and after they’ve passed through the grading machine. It’s why his eggs are so popular.
“That one’s a second,” he points out, spotting an almost imperceptible blemish on an egg that looks perfect to my untrained eye. “It’s my face on the box. I’m not money motivated, but I want to give my customers a good product.”
“I’ve eaten heaps of eggs with those little bumps on them,” I tell him.
“Yeah, but here’s the thing, they shouldn’t be making it to supermarkets,” he counters.
The reason we bought the truck is because of Avian Influenza. Transport companies go from farm to farm. So, if one farm gets it, the truck gets it, and then everybody gets it.
This perfectionism leads to a lot of seconds – eggs that are too big, too small, slightly misshapen or marked. In most commercial operations, these would be pulped into liquid egg products, considered waste.
Here, they become a lifeline.
“I mean, I need to make sure I have plenty for the charities and they’re still good eggs – they just don’t meet the supermarket criteria,” he tells me, and I get the impression he’s happy to have so many seconds.
Aside from the abundant charity donations, the benefit of being so picky means his customers get the absolute best.
“I can’t necessarily tell when someone is using my eggs,” he says, when I ask if it’s obvious whether a cafe is using his products. “But, I can’t eat old eggs. If they’re old – and so many are old – they taste horrible.”
Josh’s eggs are, indeed, very fresh. At the back of the grading room, they’re packaged and labelled. It’s the final step before they’re loaded onto pallets ready for delivery.
The impetus for taking transport in-house was simple: managing the risk of Avian Influenza
Closed loop
For a business moving 65,000 dozen a week, the obvious move is to hire a transport company to handle the major deliveries. They pick up the pallets, you pay an invoice and the headache belongs to someone else.
The smaller store-specific deliveries have always been handled in-house, across a refrigerated fleet that is made up of an Isuzu N Series and a couple of Renault vans, but the larger deliveries are done using a semi-trailer.
When Avian Influenza began to loom large over the Australian poultry industry, hitting a number of large farms around the country, the risk of outside infection threatened Josh’s operation.
The idea of a third-party truck rolling onto the property – a truck that had likely been to three other farms that morning – was a biosecurity nightmare and a risk Josh and Tamsyn weren’t willing to take.
“The reason we bought the truck is because of Avian Influenza, to put it simply,” Josh tells me, gesturing towards the white Mercedes-Benz Actros.
“Transport companies go from farm to farm. So if one farm gets it, the truck gets it, and then everybody gets it.”
The only real emissions are in the transport, so the grain trucks that deliver here or our vehicles. We are seriously looking at electrification of our transport though, in the future.
Josh and Tamsyn realised the transport companies working for them were a risk. Even their other farm needed to be completely isolated from this one, because if the flu was detected the birds had to be destroyed and the land couldn’t be inhabited by hens for 12 months. They had to make sure they had contingency.
“We needed a transport company that would only come to us,” Josh says. “Which is a hard sell.”
The alternative was to take the wheel themselves. It meant finding a driver, handling the compliance side, and dropping a fair chunk of change on a truck and trailer.
For Josh, the math was simple. The cost of the truck was high, sure, but the cost of an outbreak could ruin the business.
“So we just bought a truck,” he shrugs, clearly not a truck guy but he admits that might change.
“Oh, look, I need to be licensed to drive it,” he says. “In case a driver can’t do a run. I also have my heavy rigid licence, so I’ve spent time doing the big deliveries, just not in anything this big.”
It takes health and safety seriously, with a drive-through wash bay for every vehicle entering site
Before finding the Actros, Josh hired a 14-pallet truck (although he doesn’t remember the model) from Eurocold and did the driving himself. Like his work with the coops, and in the grading shed, he’s willing to get his hands dirty doing any number of the critical roles here.
“I only needed a medium-rigid licence, but a heavy one was the same price,” he laughs. “So yeah, I’ll get licensed for the semi eventually, but I’d rather not drive it if I can avoid it!”
Now, the Actros leaves the farm, drops the eggs at the distribution centre, and comes straight back. It touches nothing else. It visits no other farms. It’s a closed-loop operation that ensures Josh’s Rainbow Eggs remain safe.
I also noticed a wash station on the way in, which the trucks all pass through – big and small, which I assume is standard for farms like this one.
“It was either put that in, or stop anybody coming in from outside,” Josh tells me.
See, in an industry plagued by the looming threat of Avian Influenza, the standard procedure for most egg farmers is simple: lock the gate. Keep the public out. But Josh and Tamsyn aren’t most farmers.
It’s socially important. When you see the poverty of the people we supply food to, you realise how lucky we are.
The drive-through wash bay sprays the undercarriage and wheels of every vehicle entering the site, with a powerful industrial sanitiser designed to kill pathogens on contact.
For most businesses, spending serious money on a wash station just to let the public in to buy eggs wouldn’t make sense on the balance sheet, but it was an easy decision for the team here.
“For us, that was a non-negotiable,” Josh says. “Tam and I come to work to engage and to give back, not really as much to make money.”
It’s a decision that speaks volumes about their philosophy. They value the community connection – the locals who drive in to buy a tray of eggs, the families who want to see where their food comes from – more than the cost savings of locking them out.
“If I can’t have people come here and see what we do, I lose a big part of why I love it,” Josh explains.
Josh’s Rainbow Eggs has donated three million eggs to charities like Oz Harvest and Second Bite
So, the gate stays open and the connection between the farmer and the community remains unbroken. You’ve got to respect that.
Giving back
A van rolls through the gate, onto a loading area outside the grading shed. Bruce Dought from OzHarvest is loading pallets of seconds eggs into his van.
A retired medical researcher with nothing but time, he wants to give back. He’s part of a network that distributes these eggs to people who need them most, and he does it with a smile.
“I really like that I can see where it all comes from,” he tells me, smiling and nodding at Josh. “And then seeing the community, the people that really need it, because they appreciate it too.”
Josh knows all of the delivery drivers by name, and you can bet they know him too. There’s nothing but mutual respect here.
“We donate about five pallets a week during peak times,” Josh tells me, before jumping on the forklift to help load another truck that’s pulled in. “But I’d always like to do more!”
I walked up to Tamsyn at a Woolies six years ago and asked for a job. She goes, ‘when can you start?’ and I haven’t looked back. I love driving through the gate every morning, I just sigh with relief honestly.
Volunteer at Second Bite, Ross Hodgins, pops over for a chat, while company driver David Straney helps load. A former lawyer, he’s always offered his time in some way or another, first with pro-bono legal aid and now helping at the charity.
“It’s socially important,” Ross tells me. “When you see the poverty of the people we supply food to, you realise how lucky we are.
“And he started this company at nine years old,” he says, breaking the silence as we watch Josh load the truck. “I think he’s remarkable and he has a decent sense of humour with that smile!”
We’re only able to see a tiny portion of Josh’s charity work here today, but it’s clear he loves giving back. I don’t think any amount of money could change that.
Best gig going
While the charities handle the local community, the heavy lifting falls to the company’s small, but growing transport operation, as deliveries are made to individual supermarkets and distribution centres.
Peter Griffiths is the man behind the wheel of the company’s new Actros, and he’s agreed to let us follow a run from the farm to the Woolworths distribution centre in Truganina – about an hour’s drive.
The Actros leaves the farm, drops eggs at the DC, and comes straight back. It touches nothing else
He turns up on a vintage BMW R-model motorcycle, before swapping his leather jacket for high-vis. Calm, cool and with an easy-going smile, he’s happy to be here.
“It’s the best job I’ve ever had,” Peter says as he straps down a load of pallets. “I’ve always been involved in the supermarket side of things. I started with Kraft when I was 18, because you could get your licence right away back then, and then I did 12 years at Linfox for Schweppes – hand-delivering soft drinks.”
His preference for a truck? One that’s comfortable. That was the only prerequisite he gave Josh when he joined the company eight months ago.
“I really don’t mind in terms of the brands, but the European trucks are comfortable and this one goes really well too,” he tells me as we wander around the truck. It’s clear Peter is an avid motorcycle man, but trucks are just a tool.
A pallet of eggs is around 500kg, and Peter carts 22 on a typical day, so the big-power Actros is barely breaking a sweat. It’s relatively easy work, by truckie standards, with today’s run done within a few hours.
“I’m winding down, so it’s a nice job with good hours for me right now,” he says. “Plus, it’s close to home. I’ve got to say my favourite run is picking up from the other farm, which is an early start, but I’m done by around lunchtime.”
He started this company at nine years old. I think he’s remarkable and he has a decent sense of humour with that smile!
The pace is relaxed, because Josh’s operation isn’t big enough to require a constant stream of trucks – yet. Peter and I finish loading and we’re off. Compared to just about any other spot, this is an ideal place to start your day. It’s peaceful, the view is excellent, and the load is ethical.
It’s a relatively uneventful run to Truganina, truth be told, as Peter glides the Actros back towards Melbourne. We’ve got a delivery slot to make, but we’re in no real rush and the most important thing when carting eggs is getting them to the other end unscathed.
The truck does get some attention out on the road, particularly around the Macedon Ranges, largely due to Josh’s face on the trailer. While so many transport companies avoid branding, opting for white prime movers and plain trailers, Josh has no intention of hiding his brand.
And why would he? He’s a local hero and one of the most-loved primary producers around. While I’m relatively new to seeing his face, being a Queenslander, people in Melbourne have seen this smile as he’s grown up … from a child, to a teenager, and now a young man.
Of course, we weren’t allowed anywhere near the Woolies DC, but I doubt we’re missing much as the pallets are unloaded and Peter sent off empty. It’s a rapid run back to the farm, with the Actros unencumbered by the weight of Josh’s free-range eggs.
Josh has many responsibilities, from fixing machines, to finance, to even driving the trucks
Terri Mournellis, who spent 27 years as a deli manager with Woolworths, drives one of the delivery vans servicing the independent stores. I saw her out on the road and she’s now following us up the driveway onto the farm.
She’s a whirlwind of energy and I can’t think of a better person to be delivering eggs to individual stores, including the merchandising which is something Josh prefers his team handle when possible.
“I walked up to Tamsyn at a Woolies six years ago and asked for a job,” Terri laughs. “She goes, ‘when can you start?’ and I haven’t looked back. I love driving through the gate every morning, I just sigh with relief, honestly.”
Terri is about to knock off for the day, after taking the Renault van to 11 stores across the morning, which included packing the shelves.
“I know the inventory better than the store managers do,” she says, eager to chat. “Don’t try and tell me you don’t need eggs … I checked the shelf!”
Peter flies past us on his motorcycle as we’re chatting, throwing up an arm with the swagger that comes with a vintage bike. He’s done his job, delivering enough eggs to keep Woolworths stores stocked for another day.
I know the inventory better than the store managers do. Don’t try and tell me you don’t need eggs … I checked the shelf!
Growing up
As the sun begins to dip over the property, casting long shadows across the giant moveable sheds, the operation winds down for another day. The chickens seek cover in their coops, the Maremmas take up night watch, and the grading shed grinds to a halt.
It’s a long way from a nine-year-old boy dragging a hay bale across a paddock to fund his Lego obsession.
Josh is now balancing the business with a Master’s degree, he tells me, as he embarks on the next phase of his professional life. He wants to step back slightly from the day-to-day grind to focus on strategy, but it’s hard to imagine him letting go of the reins completely.
“I’m the one who works on the machines, the one who does the balance sheet, I’m the one who drives the trucks if nobody else can,” he says. “But, I can’t do it all. I’m trying to learn how to stand back and manage, so we can do even more good with the company.”
Josh’s Rainbow Eggs is growing up, and that’s good news if you like his eggs. It’s also good news for charities, because with more chickens, more eggs, come more seconds.
As I drive out through the front gate, passing the sign with Josh’s now even more familiar face on it, I look down at the carton of eggs on my passenger seat. They’re ‘seconds’, too big to fit in a regular carton. They look pretty bloody good to me. Spoiler: the first three I cracked were double yolkers!
