What comes first, the chicken or the egg? The answer? Money. Jack Wintersteen wants to buy Kauai Egg Farms in Koloa. He has the chickens and the eggs, and he has plans and plenty of ambition. What he does not
What comes first, the chicken or the egg? The answer? Money.
Jack Wintersteen wants to buy Kauai Egg Farms in Koloa. He has the chickens and the eggs, and he has plans and plenty of ambition.
What he does not have at the moment is $25,000 to put down as an ownership stake. And time is running out.
“I know this can be a good business, but I haven’t had any luck getting a loan,” Wintersteen said.
He said at full capacity the farm could be a real money maker potentially generating six-figure sales.
But he has some obstacles in his way. The farm needs cash infusion to update or repair equipment, and, he’s trying to do it alone.
“We have 10 acres of land we lease from Grove Farm,” he said. ‘The banks don’t want to loan on land that is not owned because they have no collateral.”
Lanny Bruder who started the farm six years ago left Kaua‘i about two and half years ago. He is asking $50,000 for the farm and the equipment.
Bruder said in a phone interview from Arizona that he had not been investing in the operation over the past few years and that it would really hurt him to see the farm close.
He is supportive of Wintersteen’s bid to buy the farm but said, “I need to move it one way or another. At $50,000 I feel I’m pretty much giving it away. I’d like to see him get it, but he can’t come up with enough cash. He has the know-how and the ambition to do it. He needs an investor. The place has great potential for expansion.”
Wintersteen has definite ideas about what he wants to do and knows from experience that he’s best suited following his own plans.
“I want to be an owner,” he said. “I’m not looking for a partner.”
The egg farm is Kaua‘i’s sole distributor of free-range natural eggs.
Other distributors may get their eggs from outside sources, whether they be O‘ahu or elsewhere and then repackage them here. But Kaua‘i Egg Farms truly boasts a homegrown product.
Though undercapitalized and in need of maintenance, the farm continues to supply locally hatched eggs for Big Save, Foodland, Star Market and the farmer’s market. The free-range chickens are fed hormone-free feed which is why Kauai Egg Farms also supplies Papaya’s Natural Food and Cafe.
Bruder said he made the decision to relocate to the Mainland for family health reasons.
Since then, his daughter Danielle Speyer has been overseeing the business. She would like to get into other things and supports Wintersteen as the right man for the task.
Wintersteen, an intense but also disarmingly likable man, came on the scene about six months ago and has put in a lot of sweat equity as well as some of his own cash.
Wintersteen has one helper, 15-year-old Matt Wellman who will return soon to Kaua‘i High School. There is also a delivery person.
Though a devout Christian and family man, Wintersteen is not adverse to risk.
You know those guys who put glass on the sides of sky-scrapers? Wintersteen is one of them. He has done that job all through the Mainland and was once whisked around by a gust of wind while high in the air.
He understands the concept of risk.
He recently purchased 750 chicks to bring the hatchery up to 1,500 chickens. Wintersteen said the facility has the capacity for 3,000 chickens. He also pays for chicken feed which he said represented about 50 percent of the farm’s costs.
Wintersteen said an average hen lays quality eggs for about three years. After that, they can be sold as stew chickens. Seventeen hours of exposure to light produces one egg. Wintersteen likened this to a sort of poultry version of ovulation “photosynthesis.”
Production goes down in the summer months because chickens spend less time in the light due to higher temperatures and seek more shelter.
By his own admission, Wintersteen is a jack of all trades. He works construction by trade, but he has picked up a lot of what he needs to learn to run an egg farm.
“Chickens are creatures of habit,” he observed, “they’re not that smart.”
There are nine years left on the lease. Bruder said he had received one offer but said it was ridiculously low.
As for Wintersteen’s loan plight, Bruder said, “I feel bad. He’s going around in circles.”
Wintersteen said there were problems at times getting appropriate paperwork and farm information together to meet the demands of potential loaners.
These factors — combined with the difficulty of getting a farm equipment appraiser to come out to the facility — have Wintersteen stretched a bit thin, but not ready to give up.
He said he had plans to use the chicken manure to grow vegetables, specifically tomatoes and cucumbers.
Bruder agreed with Wintersteen said that he felt banks and investors were not doing enough to promote agriculture.
“It’s called The Garden Island. Agriculture should be more important,” Bruder said.
“It would be sad to see it fold,” Bruder said, “but if we don’t have someone soon, I’ll have to liquidate and close it down.”
