Specialty poultry producer Bell & Evans made its mark on the industry by doing things differently. More than 30 years after entrepreneur Scott Sechler purchased the business, it continues to push the envelope while growing with rising demand.
Farmers Pride Inc., doing business as Bell & Evans, ranks as the 21st-largest poultry company in the U.S., according to WATT Global Media’s Top Broiler Companies survey. The family-owned, Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania, company employs over 1,800 and produced 3.5 million pounds of ready-to-cook (RTC) chicken on a weekly basis in 2018.
In 2018, Bell & Evans' sales totaled $344.4 million, an increase from $334 million the prior year. It produced the same amount of meat both years. This year, it expects revenue of about $400 million. Between 2015 and 2017, Bell & Evans increased its RTC chicken production to 3.5 million pounds from 3 million pounds.
“Nobody gets more money for chicken than we do and we have big percentages of growth,” Scott Sechler said. “We can’t seem to keep up these days with those who are willing to pay more.”
Sechler, Bell & Evans’ president and owner, said the company is now growing by 10% to 15% annually. It’s a great leap from the usual 2% to 4%. This is enabling major investments in expansion. In 2019 alone, the company spent about $20 million on improvements. In 2020, it plans to break ground on a $200 million processing facility that could triple or quadruple its production.
Doing it differently
Bell & Evans was founded in 1894 when Howard Bell and Carlton Evans started shipping fresh chicken from Camden, New Jersey, to New York City. In the mid-1980s, Sechler bought and consolidated the operations of Fredericksburg processor C.F. Manbeck Inc. and Farmers Pride and acquired the Bell & Evans brand from the Bell family. At the time, the company’s reputation was built on supplying quality products to butchers in New York City.
Sechler said his focus from the beginning was producing a top quality product. Today, from hatching to harvest, Bell & Evans does it differently. He said the unique set up is a reflection of a full commitment to practices the company thinks create better chicken.
“Those that say, ‘A chicken is a chicken is a chicken.’ OK. So think that the rest of your life,” he said. “We think we can make chicken better every year than the year before.”
Bell & Evans says it is the only major company in the industry to disinfect and clean out houses between flocks. Sechler began the practice in 1985. It also says it was the first to start raising birds without antibiotics in 1998. Its birds are raised in accordance with its own elevated animal welfare standards. The only difference between organic birds and the rest of its flock is outdoor access and organic feed. However, all of its chicks start on organic feed. As of 2011, all birds are rendered unconscious using a slower form of controlled atmosphere stunning it calls slow induction anesthesia. All eviscerated carcasses are 100% air-chilled, too.
It is also a leading supplier of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) certified organic chicken and the largest chicken supplier for Whole Foods Market. In an interview, Sechler said more than half of the company’s sales dollars and about 40% of its total pounds produced are organic. Within the next year, he expects organic pounds to be within 50%, too.
An organic hatchery
The company hatches its own eggs in a $40 million, 160,000-square-foot hatchery, opened in 2017. It offers chicks continuous access to organic feed, water and light. It is also the only hatchery in the world certified organic by the USDA.
The hatchery’s current capacity is 1.4 million chicks per week and it is currently hatching slightly less than that figure. It can be expanded to hatch as many as 2.8 million chicks per week. Expansions will occur as production increases with the new harvesting facility.
Executive Vice President Scott “Buddy” Sechler Jr. said the hatchery avoids what he called a loophole in the organic standards. Organic practices are required by the USDA to begin on the second day of life, allowing producers to raise organic birds hatched in conventional hatcheries. He said Bell & Evans believes organic begins in the hatchery. Soon the breeders themselves will be raised organic, too.
The hatchery uses machinery made by HatchTech and the Viscon Group to detect viable eggs in order to avoid wasting resources and exposing healthy embryos to bacteria. Viable eggs are placed in specialized, two-layer baskets allowing the chick to hatch down into a second tray stocked with organic feed. The hatchers are lit and supply water through troughs outside the chick baskets.
The hatchery does not inject eggs with antibiotics or use formaldehyde for sanitization purposes. There is minimal handling and there are no conveyor belts. The tray eliminates shell separating and the hatchery's processing software handles chick counts. Bell & Evans does not treat the chicks’ beaks or use machinery to perform subcutaneous vaccination of chicks. It does use in ovo and aerosol spray vaccination.
Scott Sechler Jr. said minimal handling and early feeding and watering are all about reducing stress on the animal and promoting a healthy, sanitary environment at a vulnerable time. This, especially in organic growing, is essential for animal health and performance.
All new houses will use this suspended feeder instead of the conventional pan feeder. They are easier to clean after each flock. (Photo by Austin Alonzo)
Growing operations
Bell & Evans currently contracts with about 150 farms operating as many as four broiler houses. Executive Vice President Margo Sechler said that includes 20 to 25 breeder farms and about 50 organic farms. About half of its growers are members of plain communities such as the Mennonites. The integrator supplies the chicks, feed, bedding material and propane for its growers.
The integrator doesn’t own a feed mill, but rather purchases custom blended feed from nearby mills. Margo Sechler said Bell & Evans requires concrete floors in its houses as well as full clean outs and disinfections between each flock. This is a greater expense but she said it reduces the overall bacterial challenge the birds face – a key for organic production.
House designs are standardized. Every house features windows for natural light, enrichments for the birds and migration fences. Organic houses employ doors to fenced-in outdoor areas. Margo Sechler said all houses built within the last year, and all future houses, will use a European-style feeder featuring a clam-shell design made by Butterfly Concepts LLC. The pulley suspended system can be raised and lowered as needed for the birds, avoiding issues with placing pans on the ground, and opens and empties easily for cleaning.
Chicks at the Bell & Evans hatchery peek out of their hatching basket to drink out of the nearby water trough. (Photo by Austin Alonzo)
Processing
Bell & Evans maintains two separate plants and a rendering facility. A third plant, slated to open with two lines and expand to four, will begin construction in 2020.
Birds are slaughtered at the first plant and then trucked down the road to a $110 million, 160,000 square-foot processing, packaging and par frying facility that opened in 2015. When the third facility is fully operational, it could expand total production by three or four times.
The integrator uses the most advanced machinery and packaging available at the $110 million processing plant it opened in 2015. (Photo by Austin Alonzo)
Scott Sechler said the processing facilities are built with the future in mind. The second facility’s processing floor is designed to accommodate future mechanical reconfigurations and expansion. Scott Sechler Jr. said Bell & Evans isn’t shy about capital improvements and recently invested in automated deboning and imaging machinery. All of the company’s deboned products are now screened by bone detection devices.
Not for sale
Scott Sechler foresees greater growth for Bell & Evans. The Sechlers, he said, will continue to plow money back into the business. Future improvements could include construction of a feed mill. Moving forward, it will focus on its mission to provide the best possible product.
The owner is resolved not to sell the company despite constant interest. He mentioned how the largest integrators are moving to buy up smaller, specialty producers. That won’t be the case for Bell & Evans.
“The kids are here, they are the next generation and I tell them we don’t need the money,” he said.
Both his daughter – Margo Sechler, 28, whose duties include live production, human resources and marketing – and his son – Scott Sechler Jr., 24, charged with sales, marketing and research and development responsibilities – are already intimately involved in the business. While both explored outside careers, they returned to the business they’ve known since childhood.
“We have a very special business. It is a family business,” Scott Sechler said. “The reason we’re growing like crazy is because the people want to do business with a family business and they want to buy products that were produced for all the right reasons.”
From left: Scott “Buddy” Sechler Jr, Margo Sechler and Scott Sechler, Bell & Evans. (Photo by Austin Alonzo)
A challenging breed switch
Farmers Pride Inc., doing business as Bell & Evans, is recovering from a setback with a new breed of slower-growing birds it launched in January 2018. In late 2017, it announced a switch to a breed it called Das Klassenbester (DK) imported from Europe.
By the end of 2019, Bell & Evans will have fully switched to a breed it calls DK2. Specifics of the breed’s parentage and performance were not disclosed. But it does grow faster than the first DK bird which grew 15% slower than the birds it was using before the 2018 breed switch. The switch was made to avoid future losses and financial stress on its growers.
Executive Vice President Margo Sechler cited feed conversion and quality issues with the breed. Scott Sechler said the product cost 15 cents more per pound to produce, but there was no willingness to pay a premium for the slower-growing products. So, it had to sell a years’ worth of product without the premium. The Sechlers estimated it cost Bell & Evans millions.
The experiment also illustrated the difficulties of producing slower-growing chickens at the commercial scale. Bell & Evans is the best equipped company to do it, Scott Sechler said, but its difficulties on both the live and market side are sobering for proponents of slower-growing broiler genetics.
Bell & Evans is a member of Global Animal Partnership’s (GAP) chicken partners. GAP is a third-party welfare standards organization linked to Whole Foods Market. The non-profit organization is based in Austin, Texas, and was founded in 2008 by Whole Foods CEO John Mackey.
All meat sold at the high-end grocer must be certified by GAP. The standards are tiered. The lowest rung, Step 1, calling for what it calls no crates, no cages and no crowding. The highest, Step 5+, calling for pasture raised animals who are born and slaughtered on the same farm. Bell & Evans is the chain’s largest chicken supplier.
The Sechlers said there’s no interest in moving Bell & Evans higher up the GAP step system. Executive Vice President Scott “Buddy” Sechler Jr. said Bell & Evans is focused on making its own animal welfare standard the best. Its customers recognize the quality and strength of its brand over the GAP brand or any other third-party welfare scheme, and it should stay that way.
From left: Margo Sechler and Tory Baum, Bell & Evans pose after walking through an organic broiler house. (Photo by Austin Alonzo)
