Herbruck's Poultry Ranch recently celebrated 60 years of business. The company was founded by Marilyn and Harry Herbruck Jr. in Saranac, Michigan (Ionia county), where the company still has its headquarters today.
Now operated by the third generation of family members, Herbruck's Poultry Ranch Inc. is Michigan's largest egg farm and the 11th-largest nationally according to the WATTAgNet Top Poultry Companies Database. The company has seven locations in Ionia county, along with facilities in other areas of Michigan, Indiana and Pennsylvania.
“The farm started here in 1958 with one small building. It still exists after several remodels and is used mostly for storage now, but no chickens,” Herb Herbruck, son of the company’s founders, told the Ionia Sentinel-Standard.
As a fully integrated business, Herbruck's is involved in breeding, agriculture, feed and fertilizer production. The company also partners with 25 small farms to produce organic and cage-free eggs.
“Our commitment to doing what’s best for our hens, team members, customers, community and the environment has allowed us to grow over the last 60 years,” Greg Herbruck, president of Herbruck’s said in the Sentinel-Standard report.
Herbruck’s produces white and brown conventionally raised eggs, cage-free eggs, organic eggs and nutritionally enhanced eggs. It also produces liquid egg products, consumer packed and institutional or bulk packaged egg products.
The company flock has grown from 3,000 laying hens in the late 1950s to 8.4 million as of December 31, 2017.
“I am proud of our children and grandchildren for keeping our values strong and finding ways to do things better than we did yesterday. On behalf of our entire family, we thank our family members, employees, customers and neighbors for supporting our business over the last 60 years,” Marilyn Herbruck, told the Sentinel-Standard.
As the fourth generation of family members begins to carry on the family tradition within the poultry industry, Greg Herbruck explained that this special milestone within the business wouldn’t have happened without the solid foundation laid by family members before him.
Sixty years of continued success isn't all the family has had to celebrate recently. In March 2018, the family operation won the Family Farm Environmental Excellence Award.
