From the moment a hen lays an egg in our Saloni Village pasture to the moment your doorbell rings — every step is documented, every checkpoint is named, every hand that touches your egg is known to us. Here's exactly how it happens, in the order it happens.
There is something quietly satisfying about knowing where your food comes from. Not in a vague, marketing-pamphlet way — but specifically. Which farm. Which hen. Which morning. Which pair of hands. Which truck. Most modern food has none of this traceability, and most consumers have stopped asking. We think that's a small tragedy. So we've built our entire process around being the opposite — every step visible, every person named, every checkpoint a real human standing at a real bench making a real call.
What follows is the complete journey of a Sahya Agro egg. We've kept it honest on purpose; some of these steps cost us more than the alternative, and we'd rather you understand why our eggs cost a little more than a supermarket carton than nod along to vague claims about "natural" and "fresh." If something here raises a question, our WhatsApp is always open. If you'd rather see it in person, we welcome visitors every Saturday. The most luxurious thing a food company can offer in 2026 is not packaging — it's a process you can actually inspect.
Each section below covers exactly what happens, who does it, and the standards we hold ourselves to. Read it through once and you'll know more about your eggs than 95% of customers know about any food they eat.
Our process starts not with eggs but with the hens themselves. We raise approximately 3,500 hens across two heritage breeds — Rhode Island Red (responsible for our brown eggs) and Heritage Leghorn (responsible for the white eggs and most of our Omega Reserve flock). Both are slow-growing, climate-appropriate breeds that lay fewer eggs per year than commercial industrial hybrids — but with stronger shells, deeper yolks, and significantly better welfare outcomes.
Our farm spans 5 acres of native-tree-shaded pasture in Saloni Village, Mahendragarh district. The stocking density is roughly 700 hens per acre, well below the 1,000-per-acre threshold that international standards consider the upper limit for genuine free-range certification. The hens roam from sunrise to sunset, returning to raised barns at night where they're protected from jackals and stray dogs. There are dust-bath pits, communal nest boxes, and shaded areas under jamun, neem, and shisham trees.
The hens come to us as 16-week-old pullets from a small NPOP-certified breeder in Rajasthan we've worked with since 2020. They lay reliably for about 18-24 months, after which they're transitioned to a slower secondary flock for the rest of their natural lives — never sent to slaughter. This adds cost, but it's how we'd want our own families' farms run.
The single biggest determinant of egg quality is what the hen ate that day. Most commercial eggs come from hens fed cheap industrial pellets containing soy meal, corn fillers, synthetic colourants (to fake yolk colour), and sub-therapeutic antibiotics. Ours don't. Our base feed is a custom organic blend mixed in-house every morning from NPOP-certified ingredients: 35% maize, 20% bajra (pearl millet), 15% soybean, 10% sunflower seed, 8% wheat bran, 5% dried marigold petals, 3% turmeric, and 4% calcium-mineral mix.
For our Omega Reserve flock, soybean is partially replaced by 12-15% whole flax seed — the world's richest plant source of alpha-linolenic acid, which gets metabolised into the long-chain Omega-3 fatty acids that show up in the yolk. Marigold petals provide natural xanthophylls that give the yolk its deep amber colour without any synthetic carotenoids. Turmeric adds curcumin (a natural antimicrobial) and a subtle gold tint to the white.
What's not in our feed: zero antibiotics (preventive or therapeutic — sick hens get pulled from the laying flock and treated separately), zero growth hormones, zero animal byproducts, zero synthetic dyes, zero arsenic-based feed additives (still legal in India for poultry but banned across the EU). We publish our feed composition publicly and welcome any customer to request a copy of our supplier certifications.
Hens lay between 6 AM and 11 AM, with peak activity in the first two hours after sunrise. Our team — typically two to three people on collection duty — walks the nest-box rounds three times each morning: at 7 AM, 9 AM, and 11 AM. Each collection round takes about 45 minutes. Eggs are gathered by hand into shallow ventilated baskets — never tossed, never dropped onto a conveyor belt the way industrial systems do.
Within 90 minutes of collection, every basket of eggs makes it to our grading room. They're weighed at the door (a quick check on flock health — if average egg weight drops, we investigate feed and water immediately) and then placed onto a slow-moving sorting bench. The whole farm produces between 2,800 and 3,200 eggs per day, depending on season — winter dips slightly because the hens conserve energy, summer is at peak.
Why hand-collection matters: automated belt systems, while cheaper at scale, cause an estimated 4-6% hairline cracks during the collection-to-belt transit. These cracks let in bacteria and shorten shelf life, even if invisible to the customer. Our hand-collection produces less than 0.4% hairline cracks at this stage, all of which we catch at candling. It's slower. It's costlier. It's the right way to do it.
Our grading team is led by Sunita, who has been with us since 2020 and trained four assistant graders since. The grading room is the most important room on our farm. Every single egg passes through it. Every single egg gets candled — which means held in front of a bright LED in a darkened booth so the grader can see through the shell and check three things: shell integrity (any hairline cracks invisible to a naked eye), yolk centring and movement (a healthy egg has a yolk that holds its position and doesn't slosh wildly), and air-cell size (a fresh egg has a small air cell at the wide end; a larger one indicates older).
Beyond candling, eggs are sorted by weight class (small, medium, large, jumbo) and visual inspection (any external dirt, irregular shape, discolouration). Our grading standards reject roughly 12% of eggs at this stage — a higher rate than industry norms, which we treat as a feature, not a bug. Rejected eggs go to our team's own kitchens, the village school's midday meal programme, and our farm's own dogs and cats. Nothing reaches a customer if it wouldn't be good enough for our own breakfast.
The whole grading process happens within 4 hours of collection. The eggs are then refrigerated in our cold-chain holding room at 4-6°C until packing. From the moment an egg leaves the nest box to the moment it's ready for dispatch, it never sees a temperature above 18°C.
Our packaging matters more than most people realise. Most commercial eggs travel in flimsy plastic or low-grade polystyrene that protects the eggs poorly and harms the environment forever. Ours travel in 100% recycled moulded-pulp cartons — biodegradable, home-compostable, and engineered to absorb shocks at every angle. The outer corrugated carton has a custom honeycomb shock-absorbing insert. For Gulf shipments, we add a thin foil thermal liner and two ice packs that maintain internal temperature under 12°C for 96 hours.
Every carton carries three pieces of information that most brands don't print: the lay date (so you know exactly when the egg was laid, not just packed), the batch number (which ties to a specific lab report on our public reports page), and a small handwritten initial from the team member who packed it. That last one is a quiet piece of accountability — if something is off, we know exactly whose hands the carton last passed through.
Each carton goes through a final visual inspection at packing — yes, a third pair of eyes after the candling room. We pack between 7 PM and 10 PM the same day the eggs were laid, ready for next-morning dispatch. Subscribers get their cartons custom-labelled with their first name on the front; it's a small touch that began as an experiment in 2022 and has stuck around because customers said they missed it when we briefly stopped.
Eggs leave our Saloni Village farm before 6 AM in refrigerated vans for routes within 200 km. For longer Indian routes, we transfer to cold-chain logistics partners (we use two — Snowman Logistics and a regional partner — on a rotating basis to ensure backup capacity). Every shipment box has an adhesive temperature indicator that flags any breach above 10°C; we audit these on receipt for our top 50 high-volume customers as a sample check.
The moment an order is dispatched, you get an SMS and WhatsApp message with a live tracking link. You'll see the courier partner, vehicle number, current GPS location, and the estimated time of arrival, updating every 60 seconds. For final-mile delivery, the driver's phone number is also shared so you can coordinate directly. If tracking goes silent for more than two hours — rare, but it happens occasionally in remote pincodes — call our dispatch desk at +91 90917 92917 and someone will follow up within 10 minutes.
For Gulf-region shipments (UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain), we partner with cold-chain freight forwarders who maintain 4-8°C cargo holds. Each Gulf carton has additional foil thermal lining and two gel ice packs sized to maintain under-12°C internal temperature for 96 hours, well beyond the longest typical transit window of 5-7 days. Our published spoilage rate for Gulf deliveries is under 0.7%, lower than most premium cross-border food shipments.
Delivery times vary by zone. For Delhi-NCR and most of Haryana, you typically receive your eggs same-day or next-day after dispatch. For Tier-1 metro cities (Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune, Ahmedabad), 48-72 hours. For Tier-2 Indian cities, 3-5 days. For Gulf destinations, 4-7 days. Exact ETA appears on your tracking link the moment we dispatch.
The story doesn't end at the doorstep. If anything is wrong with your order — even one cracked egg, even a missing item, even just a feeling that something is off — message support@sahyaagro.com or WhatsApp us within 24 hours of receipt with a photo. We replace the entire tray for free or refund the order in full, your choice, no interrogation. We've processed about 340 such replacements in the last two years — a rate of under 0.3% of all orders — and we treat each one as a quality signal to fix upstream, not just paper over.
Subscribers get an extended replacement window: we don't enforce the 24-hour photo deadline for them. We trust our regular customers; they trust us back. That's the whole bargain. If a subscriber says a tray was off in any way, we replace it. The whole 7-step process exists to make those phone calls rare. When they happen, it's our chance to make the next 7 steps even better.
And exactly what we do to catch problems before they reach you.
Every egg held against bright LED in a dark booth. Catches hairline cracks invisible to the eye, abnormal yolk movement, oversized air cells.
Weight drift signals flock health issues. Visual inspection catches surface dirt, irregular shape, discolouration. Grade A standard or out.
Every shipment box has an adhesive temperature strip. Sample audits on receipt for top 50 customers each quarter. Anomalies trigger route review.
NABL-accredited labs test for Omega-3, antibiotic residue, heavy metals, salmonella, and E. coli. Reports public, batch-tagged, downloadable.
An egg is only as good as the humans who handled it. Three of our team members who shape the process daily.
Sunita can tell the age of an egg by the sound it makes when she cracks it. She trained four assistant graders, and her shift sets the standard for the whole farm. She lives in Saloni and walks to work every morning.
Rajesh still walks the coops every morning before breakfast. He personally reviews every quality complaint, every Friday, with the team. His grandmother sold eggs from the same village in the 1970s; Sahya Agro is the modern version of her practice.
Anita runs the dispatch desk and tracks every shipment in real time. If something goes off-route, she's the one who calls within 10 minutes. She joined us as a Class 12 graduate and is now studying logistics part-time on our scholarship programme.
Twelve months of farm data, last full audit cycle.
For Haryana and Delhi-NCR customers, the typical journey is under 36 hours. For Tier-1 metro cities, 48-72 hours. For Tier-2 Indian cities, 3-5 days. For Gulf destinations, 4-7 days, throughout maintained in a 4-10°C cold chain. Compare this with commercial supermarket eggs that often sit on shelves for 10-30 days before purchase.
Genuinely free-range. Our 3,500 hens roam across 5 acres of open pasture from sunrise to sunset, returning to raised barns only at night for protection. The stocking density is approximately 700 hens per acre — well below the international free-range threshold of 1,000/acre. "Cage-free" is the bare minimum standard; we go several levels beyond it. Visitors can see this for themselves on Saturdays.
Our base organic feed comprises maize (35%), bajra (20%), soybean (15%), sunflower seed (10%), wheat bran (8%), marigold petals (5%), turmeric (3%), and a calcium-mineral mix (4%). For Omega Reserve hens, soybean is partially replaced by 12-15% whole flax seed. All ingredients are NPOP-certified organic, sourced from Haryana and Rajasthan. Zero antibiotics, growth hormones, or synthetic colourants.
Three layers of protection. First, hand-collection prevents the impact damage that automated belts cause. Second, our packaging uses moulded-pulp inserts that absorb shocks at every angle, plus an outer corrugated honeycomb. Third, our courier partners are briefed on egg-handling protocols. Despite all this, occasional cracks happen — and when they do, we replace the entire tray for free with no 24-hour reporting deadline for subscribers.
Our grading team is led by Sunita, who has worked with us since 2020 and trained four assistant graders. Every single egg passes through at least two pairs of eyes — first at candling, then at packing. Eggs that don't pass either inspection go to our team's kitchens or the village school's midday meal programme. Nothing is wasted; nothing substandard reaches you.
Yes. We welcome visitors on Saturdays year-round and selected Sundays from October to March. A typical 2-3 hour visit includes the pasture walk, the grading room, the cold-chain packing area, and chai with our team. Email visits@sahyaagro.com or WhatsApp us with your preferred date and group size. Entry is free; lunch is available at a small charge.
Yes, and we've maintained this for seven years. Conventional poultry uses preventive antibiotics because high stocking densities and stressed hens get sick. Our hens live in low-stress conditions with sunlight, dust baths, foraging, and proper nutrition — so they rarely fall ill. When a hen does need treatment, she's removed from the laying flock for the full withdrawal period, treated by our on-call vet, and her eggs during that window do not enter our supply.
For India routes within 200 km, we use refrigerated vans operating at 4-8°C. For longer Indian routes, we partner with cold-chain logistics providers and add gel-pack insulation, monitored by adhesive temperature indicators that flag any breach. For Gulf shipments, we add foil thermal liners and two ice packs, designed to keep internal temperature under 12°C for 96 hours.
If a 7-step process from a real farm feels right to you, that first breakfast tends to do the rest of the convincing.