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!”
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.
Josh’s Rainbow Eggs is truly a family affair, with Josh’s mum Dr Tamsym Murray the company’s CEO, and brother Jack and sisters Jemma and Jessica also actively involved in the business
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 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.
The impetus for taking the transportation task in-house, with the purchase of a Mercedes-Benz Actros, was simple: managing the risk of Avian Influenza
“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.
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.
The full story appears in the Summer Issue of ROADBOSS Magazine, out now. To ensure you don’t miss another edition click here to subscribe.
