Bell & Evans, a family-owned company located in Fredericksburg, Pa. and pioneer of natural and organic chicken, recently broke ground on a 560,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art European-plus chicken harvesting plant in Fredericksburg. This will be the first new build of a chicken harvesting facility in the northeast United States in over 40 years. The operations at this facility will mimic those at the existing harvesting facility, with humane animal welfare as the primary focus. The new plant is slated to begin operations in early 2020.
At full capacity, the new plant will process 2.6 million birds per week. Bell & Evans’ existing chicken harvesting plant will continue operations, processing another 1 million birds weekly. The increased harvesting volume will align with increased operations at its new organic certified and animal welfare-focused chicken hatchery that began operations in August 2017 and its packaging and further processing facility, which opened in 2015. Bell & Evans is also expanding its broiler breeding and grow out programs to support production growth.