Jamaica Broilers Group (JBG) has reached an agreement to sell its hatchery in Bancroft, Iowa.
The company’s decision to sell the hatchery was announced to the Jamaica Stock Exchange on March 15. The prospective buyer was not identified, but the proposed transaction is valued at US$23 million.
Jamaica Broilers, which does business as The Best Dressed Chicken, has owned the hatchery since 2016, when it purchased it from Welp Inc.
“This asset sale transaction is a strategic investment of JBG to consolidate its assets, and to increase the efficiency of JBG’s vertical integration in the United States,” the announcement read.
Ian Parsard, JBG executive director and group senior vice president, told Jamaica Loop that because the company has assets spread across multiple states, the cost to transport from Iowa was not efficient, adding, “We’re going to be consolidating operations around the processing plant in the future.”
The processing plant, which the company purchased from Gentry’s Poultry in 2019, is located in Ward, South Carolina.
JBG also owns a hatchery in Big Valley, Pennsylvania, which it purchased from Bell & Evans in 2017.
According to the WATTPoultry.com Top Poultry Companies Database, JBG produced 1.96 million pounds of ready-to-cook chicken in the United States on a weekly basis during the past year. It ranks as the 26th largest poultry producer in the U.S.
With its operations in Jamaica, the company also ranks as the third largest poultry producer in the Caribbean and Central America, having slaughtered 72 million pounds of broilers during the past year.
Jamaica Broilers earlier had operations in Haiti, but made the decision to exit from there in 2022, citing that is no longer viable to operate there amid political unrest, an earthquake and difficulties brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
