The flock's output is a curve, not a number. Hens lay differently by age and by season, so knowing what next month produces is what stops a producer promising a bakery volume the birds will not supply.
Size decides the destination. Larges go one way and smalls another, and a producer who does not track the grading mix cannot commit to a customer who only wants one of them.
Traceability is stamped on the shell. Codes tie every box to a flock and a date, and an incident anywhere in the chain means being able to say precisely which eggs went where.
Two businesses share one shed. A weekly delivery round and a farm gate that opens on Saturdays have different rhythms and different margins, and lumping them together hides which one is worth the labour.