Shadow Cross Farm in Colchester has announced that the family-owned egg distribution business that has operated for 83 years will close as of April 1.

In a phone interview with Seven Days, Rich Paquette, owner-partner of  Shadow Cross with his wife, Linda, cited overall increases in the costs of running a business, uncertainty in egg supply due to the risk of avian flu and difficulty in procuring essential materials such as egg cartons.

"Honestly, a lot of little factors keep adding up," Paquette said. "We're still doing well, but the world is changing dramatically around us. The challenges are never ending."



Paquette said he is 64 and his wife, 62. Every new hurdle, he explained, "is just another worry that we don't want to take on ... Just keeping our trucks on the road is very expensive."

The company's six delivery trucks serve several hundred accounts across Vermont, including chain supermarkets, independent markets and restaurants. "In this area, we're pretty saturated," Paquette said.

On Tuesday, the cooler shelves at City Market, Onion River Co-op were still full of Shadow Cross Farm eggs, whose cartons bore the tagline "Good Eggs to Deal With."

"It's always sad to see a local distributor close," City Market general manager John Tashiro wrote by email. Tashiro added that he was not concerned about being able to fill the coolers with other egg options.

Paquette's grandfather, Leonel Paquette, founded Shadow Cross in 1940. His parents, Dick and Pauline Paquette, ran it until Dick's death in 2016. The farm stopped raising its own laying hens in 2000 and has since distributed eggs from what Paquette described as two "family farms" — one in Vermont and one in New York. He declined to name them.

Shadow Cross let its customers know about the upcoming closure in early March. The Paquettes have connected Barre-based MacAuley's Foodservice with their partner egg farms and hope some Shadow Cross accounts will transition to MacAuley's.

Alison Lane, co-owner of Mirabelles Bakery in South Burlington, said that she and her business partner, Andrew Silva, have bought eggs from Shadow Cross since they opened their business in Burlington in 1990. "When we were downtown, they'd deliver every other day," Lane said.

Back during the years of Mirabelles' sit-down café, Lane recalled that sometimes she'd have to call Dick Paquette on a Sunday for emergency egg delivery. "He'd load them up in his convertible and say, 'I needed an excuse to go for a ride,'" she said.

The relationship went beyond business. Lane said Rich Paquette came in person to share the news that Mirabelles would need to find a new egg source.

"I love their driver who comes to us now," Lane said. "We made egg cookies for his last delivery."

Jean-Luc Matecat, chef and co-owner of Pioneer Lakeshore Café in Colchester, said he's been buying eggs from Shadow Cross on and off for about a decade. "They had a really solid egg for the price and really great, reliable delivery," Matecat said.

The chef recalled how Dick Paquette would save double-yolked eggs for him. "It's nice to do business with someone who you can see face to face on a regular basis," Matecat said. "I was so sad to hear they were closing."



Matecat said he will likely try to find a local farm that can provide the café roughly 360 eggs weekly.

Paquette said the family could have sold Shadow Cross Farm but, after long deliberation, they decided against it. "We had offers,"  he said, "but it's a family name. We don't want any mistakes made with our label. We take food safety very seriously. We know the chickens, the farms, who's working there."

Shuttering the legacy business "definitely feels sad," Paquette said.

Updated, Wednesday, March 29.