CLERMONT, Fla. – As egg costs soar across the country, Mussette Gonzalez is keeping her prices right where they are.
“I haven’t changed my prices since I started,” Gonzalez said. “I didn’t get into selling eggs to make a huge profit.”
Gonzalez is the owner of Lé Koopé, a small egg farm in Clermont that she runs with her mother.
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“We started with four chickens. My mother used to work for the Department of Corrections here and they had purchased some chicks for Easter for the families. Then the chickens could not stay on DOC’s properties. So we brought them over,” she said.
From there, Gonzalez went about educating herself on caring for the birds.
“I read a book from Lisa Steele,” she said. “Her grandmother showed her how to raise chickens naturally, so that’s kind of my Bible.”
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From those four birds, Gonzalez’s operation grew.
“I decided that we should start a company with what we had and what we had was land,” she said. “So why not just do chickens? Everybody eats eggs and I thought it would be something that would be sustainable.”
She prides herself on offering a multitude of colors with her eggs — from white to brown to blue and speckled.
“I want to get every color I can possibly get in the carton,” she said. “I don’t want to give two of the same color. I want to make sure everybody has a little bit of everything.”
Gonzalez and her mother now have about 500 eggs-producing chickens with 200 more that are not yet laying.
“It’s a lot of hard labor,” she said. “Especially feeding, which may be the hardest part.”
In addition to chickens, Lé Koopé also has ducks and quail. Gonzalez’s mother built the coops for all of the birds.
The pair now sell their eggs at farmers’ markets around Central Florida, with the help of the Farmacy.
“I started at Winter Gardens farmers with the Farmacy, which is my vendor. I started with them and I’ve been with them for at least five years now,” she said.
She also sells through John Rivers’ 4 Roots non-profit, as well as some direct sales to restaurants.
Gonzalez said she also has a long-term goal of getting a food truck to sell eggs to underserved communities but she has not yet been able to make that happen.
In the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Gonzalez shares more about what it takes to care for her flock of birds. She also shares how she protects her birds from avian flu and the difference in flavor between duck, chicken and quail eggs.
Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
Florida Foodie is a biweekly podcast from WKMG and Graham Media that takes a closer look at what we eat, how we eat it and the impact that has on us here in Florida and for everyone, everywhere. Find new episodes on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you download your favorite podcasts.