Durham Farms — Organic Eggs

Waipu, Northland · AsureQuality Certified Organic #1140 · Enrich Regenerative Certified

The name comes from a family who farmed this land more than a hundred years ago. The people farming it now arrived from the UK in 2011 with a specific frustration: they couldn't understand why New Zealand, a country built on food production, couldn't reliably get its own produce onto its own restaurant tables. That frustration became Durham Farms.

Adrian Townsend and Will Watts founded the operation in 2014 on 340 hectares in the Brynderwyns, above Waipu. Their families are both involved. The farm has since expanded to a second property of 360 hectares in Kaeo, plus a micro-abattoir and butchery in Whangārei — a deliberate move toward a closed-loop system where as much of the supply chain as possible stays in-house. A 2021 NZ Herald interview with Adrian Townsend gives a good picture of the founding story and early ambitions.

It is not a specialist egg farm. Durham runs a full mixed operation: around 240 dairy cows, a beef herd, beehives, market gardens, orchards, and olive groves. The chickens — more than 2,000 laying hens — live in mobile homes on pasture and are rotated across the property. That model, where hens share ground with other livestock and diverse crops, is closer to how farming was done before specialisation took over. The soil underneath the chickens is being actively managed, not just tolerated.

The certifications

Two marks appear on Durham Farms cartons. They carry different weight and it's worth understanding both.

AsureQuality Certified Organic — number 1140. AsureQuality is a New Zealand government-owned certifier, one of the two main organic certification bodies alongside BioGro. The standard covers the full supply chain — land, processing, and distribution — and requires annual independent audits. No synthetic chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, fertilisers, GMOs, growth hormones, or antibiotics at any stage. Land takes up to three years to qualify. This is the certification that provides the primary, verifiable assurance that the eggs are genuinely organic.

Enrich Regenerative Certified. A smaller, Auckland-based programme drawing on Doughnut Economics, Agile principles, and Circular Economy frameworks as its measurement tools. Durham Farms was the first company in New Zealand to receive it. Adrian and his team are transparent about where they are in the process — they describe it as an ongoing journey, with full certification across processing and distribution still in progress.

The Enrich mark reflects genuine intent and direction. But it is a young programme with a small partner list and no government recognition. The AsureQuality mark is the one you can rely on as a verified standard. The Enrich mark is worth knowing about — just not worth treating as equivalent.

The farm also received a Northland Regional Council Environmental Award in 2021, independent recognition that sits outside the certification system entirely.

The farm

Over 30 percent of the land has been set aside as protected native bush and waterways — not a token riparian strip but a meaningful portion of a 700-hectare operation. The farming model is deliberately integrated: animals and crops grown together, manure cycling through the system, chickens clearing ground that other livestock will later graze.

The ambition is large. Adrian has spoken about a 500-year business plan, and a target of growing the Northland hub to 2,500 hectares before replicating the model in Waikato and the South Island. Whether that timeline holds is another matter — but the long-term framing is consistent with how the land is being managed. You don't invest in native bush restoration if you're thinking in five-year increments.

Where to find them in Auckland

Durham Farms has the widest independent retail footprint of any certified organic egg brand in Auckland. Both of the city's main organic grocery chains carry them, as do several premium butchers, a CBD grocer, and stores across Waiheke.

North Shore: IE Produce, Takapuna (1 Barrys Point Road). Naturally Organic, Albany (23/100 Don McKinnon Drive). Well Hung Butchery, Milford (210 Kitchener Road). City of View Superette, Birkenhead.

Central: Commonsense Organics, Mt Eden (284 Dominion Road). Grey Lynn Butchers (531 Great North Road). Scarecrow, CBD (33 Victoria Street East). White Heron Dairy, Parnell (64 Gladstone Road — a corner dairy, not a specialist organic store).

East Auckland: Naturally Organic, Glen Innes (150 Apirana Avenue). Dusty's Depot, St Johns (44 Simkin Avenue — Thursday to Sunday only).

Northland: Kaiwaka Cheese Shop, Kaiwaka.

Waiheke: RAW Food Market, Ostend (4 Putiki Road). The Island Grocer, Oneroa (110 Ocean View Road).

Online: Direct delivery from durhamfarms.co.nz.

Restaurants: Grove, Baduzzi, Giapo, Forest, and Florets in Auckland. Feoh in Waipu.

What I don't know

The collective model is real but not fully mapped publicly. Some Durham Farms products come from partner farms beyond the Waipu and Kaeo properties. The website doesn't name those farms or specify which products come from where. If provenance at that level matters to you, it's worth asking directly.

Breed is not published. The 500-year vision is compelling — but the current state of the Northland collective described in 2021 is unclear; the platform for Northland growers Adrian mentioned has since gone quiet.

The eggs themselves are what most readers will encounter first. On that basis, the picture is clear: AsureQuality certified organic, pasture-raised in mobile homes, from a 700-hectare mixed farm that takes its land stewardship seriously enough to set aside a third of its property for native bush. That's a stronger foundation than most cartons on the shelf.

durhamfarms.co.nz · @durhamfarmsnz · kiaora@durhamfarms.co.nz

This article is part of OFT's eggs series. The full guide to New Zealand's better egg producers — sorted by how they farm, with regional buying tips — lives at Eggs in New Zealand.