Mr. Aled Griffiths OBE
1930 – Present
John Aled Griffiths was born in the county of Gwynedd in North Wales in June 1930. With an early interest in farming and animals, he successfully reared his first day old chicks at the age of 10.
As a teenager Aled attended Caernarfonshire Farm Institute at Madryn Castle, Pwllheli, then gained work experience on three farms in Denbighshire before being awarded a special government scholarship for farmworkers to study agriculture at University College of Wales, Aberystwyth.
Upon graduating in 1953, Aled took a job as an experimental officer at the Animal Breeding Research Organisation in Staffordshire, before being offered a farm manager’s position on a livestock farm at Minsterly in Shropshire, setting up home with his new bride, Olwen.
Soon they were farming as tenants in the county, and by 1961 had their own flock of 1,000 layers – an enterprise which expanded rapidly as Aled gained an interest in automated egg production following a visit to the US.
That interest led to the purchase of Oaklands Farm in the spring on 1969. Always the innovator and never afraid of hard work, Aled’s egg business grew rapidly, starting with a 20,000 bird automated unit in 1971, growing to include the first Thornber multi-tier cage unit, followed by a feed mill, a pullet rearing operation, and then in the 1980s a dedicated packing centre.
As the business entered the new millennium Aled retired from day to day management, allowing his sons to take the Oaklands business to the next level.
Throughout this time, Aled lent his considerable energies to advancing the interests of the wider egg sector, including a spell as NFU poultry chairman, from 1985 to 1989, and as founder chairman of the British Egg Industry Council.
He also served on the Agricultural Wages Board, as a member of the British Egg Marketing Board Trust, and as a governor of Harper Adams University College – an institution he has long had a close association with.
Aled has also picked up numerous accolades along the way, including being made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the poultry industry in 1994, and being named a Fellow of the Royal Agricultural Society.
The Royal Agricultural Society of England “Award for Excellence in Practical Farming” followed in 1999, in recognition of his commitment to innovation and sustainable farming, and in 2012 he was made an honorary life member of the International Egg Commission.
This was followed in 2018 with receipt of the Peter Kemp Award for his “outstanding contribution to the British egg industry”. And in 2021, Aled received the Dennis Wellstead award from the IEC, in recognition of his long and prestigious career in the egg industry,
Most recently, in 2022, Aled received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Egg and Poultry Industry Conference.