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Sunny Queen celebrates 50 years

When Sunny Queen Australia managing director, John O’Hara, joined the company more than 17 years ago it was predominantly a one-channel, one product business, selling shell eggs primarily to Queensland supermarkets.

Today it is a multi-faceted business that turns over $350 million and employs 140 people.

The Sunny Queen Farms brand is represented in every Australian state. Its diversified Meal Solutions product range of innovative value-added, egg-based products for food service channels now represents around 20 percent of the business.

In 2017 Sunny Queen invested $40 million in a food service factory at Carole Park near Brisbane to begin producing omelettes, fritters, patties, poached eggs, and egg bakes for the out of home breakfast market.

In June 2019 Sunny Queen finished commissioning a new $800,000 robotics line for omelettes that was specifically designed for the company.

In April 2019, Sunny Queen was recognised as the winner in a Canstar Blue survey of 2,000 Australian adults, which recognised them as the number one egg brand in Australia for consumer satisfaction, achieving five-star reviews on taste, freshness, packaging and overall customer satisfaction.

Celebrating 50  years of the Sunny Queen Farms brand, John O’Hara says the it has come a long way in the last five decades.

“Providing Australians with a hearty egg breakfast has always been part of Sunny Queen’s DNA, but when I came into the role, I thought there had to be more to eggs than just a shell,” he said.

“We looked at supplying to the ingredients market for manufacturers with other companies such as biscuits and cakes.

“But the great opportunity we saw was for convenience; portable, nutritious food because no one is really presenting a healthy breakfast alternative.

“We pushed into hospitals and aged care and eventually airlines and quick service restaurants for people looking for quick simple solution to their cooking needs.”

He said the fact that so many people don’t have time to eat breakfast at home has seen Sunny Queen set its sights on the out-of-home breakfast market, which is worth $7.4 billion.

“So, we just think there’s a fantastic opportunity for great protein products for breakfast through our value added business offering convenience, food safety and taste.

“French Toast is our newest product offering for Foodservice – a café breakfast favourite, made easy for food service outlets by Sunny Queen. It is the only snap-frozen French Toast option currently available in the Australian market.”

O’Hara said Sunny Queen were continuing to invest in free-range egg farms to meet increased consumer demand.

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