Meet the Family Farm Supplying 30,000 Eggs to the White House This Easter

Braswell Family Farms donated and delivered the cooked and dyed eggs for the annual event.

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This year’s Easter Egg Roll will take place on Monday, April 10, and Braswell Family Farms, a Nashville, North Carolina egg producer, will be supplying a whopping 30,000 dyed Easter eggs for the event. This is the second year that Braswell Family Farms has donated the most essential ingredient, — although last year, they only(!) had to deliver 18,000 eggs.

"We've been providing [White House Easter Egg Roll eggs] on and off since 1997," Trey Braswell, the fourth-generation president of Braswell Family Farms, told Food & Wine. "Prior to COVID, we produced the eggs and took them to a D.C. caterer and they handled it from there, with the hard-cooking and the dying. But when the American Egg Board was trying to choose a supplier for last year, we threw our name in the hat. They said 'We need to go ahead and tell you, not only will you donate the eggs, but you’ve got to figure out how to cook and dye them too.'"

Related:How to Dye Easter Eggs with Ingredients You Already Have in Your Kitchen

Braswell joked that his sales and marketing team "would rather ask forgiveness than permission," so they agreed to those terms, and just hoped they'd be able to meet that pastel-colored challenge. Braswell Family Farms found a way to deliver, by partnering with The Stock Pot in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to hard-boil and dye the eggs in their commercial kitchen. All 30,000 eggs were transported to Winston-Salem in late March, and over the course of seven busy days, they were cooked, dyed, and securely packaged.

"It's almost like the Olympic Torch Run," Braswell said. "The eggs go to so many places." After the Stock Pot packs the eggs up, Braswell Family Farms will collect them and take them to a chilled storage facility in Virginia, before they’re delivered to the White House at the end of this week.

In addition to the sheer volume of eggs, part of the challenge was ensuring that they could be dyed the correct colors. Braswell said that the White House selects five colors every year, and they send a Pantone color code so the eggs can be dyed exactly the shade that has been chosen. "They're very particular about it," he adds.

After the event ends and the eggs have been sufficiently rolled, they will be packed up again and composted. "There's a company that handles food waste and converts it to compost which can be applied to crops and vegetables," Braswell explained. "It's very sustainable, and I do love that they’re not just tossing those eggs in a dumpster behind the White House."

Related:Our 35 Best Easter Brunch Recipes

Braswell takes a tremendous amount of pride in the farm’s contribution to the event, because he knows first-hand what an exciting day it can be for every kid who attends. "I was five or six years old and George Bush Senior was in the White House," he said. "I remember going up there and it was just a perfect spring day. The lawn was beautifully manicured, and it felt like you could've just rolled around on the grass. There were lots of kids, lots of families, and lots of joy. President Bush came out and waved, and I can’t remember if he spoke or not, but as a boy, it was incredible to be that close to the President."

Braswell and his own family won't be attending this year because they’re hosting four (yes, four) Easter egg hunts at home for their children and their friends. "It's still really neat to know that on Easter Monday, that our eggs will be there in Washington, D.C., and there are kids having that same experience I had," he said.

Hopefully someone raises at least one perfectly-dyed egg as a little nod to Rutherford B. Hayes, too.

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