Bell & Evans, the nation’s oldest branded chicken company, recently began construction on a 411,500-square-foot Organic-Certified Chicken Harvesting Facility in Fredericksburg.
The approximately $330 million facility is expected to double the company’s current production capacity to meet increasing customer demands. It is located on the company’s 112-acre greenfield Chicken Harvesting Campus.
A fully computerized utility system that ensures water and energy efficiency will operate the facility. The facility also will recycle water from its onsite wastewater treatment plant, use hot water instead of chemicals for sanitation, and use state-of-the-art processing equipment.
The company produces organic and raised-without-antibiotics chicken.
U.S. organic chicken sales grew 13.1 percent over the three-year average, according to a 2019 IRI report, while Bell & Evans saw sales spike 69.9 percent.
The facility is expected to be operational by late 2021, and another facility will be built on the campus within the next 10 years to triple current production.
A wastewater treatment plant also is under construction, and extra hatchers were added to the hatchery to increase capacity.
Bell & Evans chickens are sold to restaurants nationwide as well as health-food markets and upscale retailers such as Publix, Whole Foods Market, Wegmans Food Markets, Roche Bros. Supermarkets, and Lunds & Byerlys.