Hillandale Farms has shut down its Turner, Maine, egg production facility.
According to media outlet maine public, the producer is closing the farm due to shifting consumer preferences and operational costs, as the producer is shifting some of its production to cage free.
"Starting December 13, 2024, our Turner, Maine location will operate solely as a supply hub for our other facilities in New England,” Hillandale told the media outlet.
Turner Town Manager Kurt Schaub stated: "Principal reasons for that ...number one, a shift over to cage free production which these structures are not conducive to. The second is the cost of getting feed to the farm here in Turner. It comes by rail to another location and then is trucked over here.”
In March 2024, Hillandale listed approximately half of its Turner facility for sale and requested that the property be rezoned.
The property was listed for sale for US$1.6 million, but does not appear to have sold and was taken off the market in October 2024. The property is in a district that only allows the land to be used for egg production. At the time, the producer said it only utilized 300-400 acres of the property.
In spring 2024, Hillandale said it was evaluating its Turner farm’s profitability quarterly and, at the time, had no plans to close the farm, despite the shipping costs needed to transport poultry feed there from the Midwest. The farm served the Maine and New Hampshire areas.
Since Hillandale bought the farm in 2015, it has scaled down production by approximately two thirds to align with customer needs. In 2015, when Hillandale began operations there, the farm housed 2.3 million birds.
According to maine public, Hillandale is still trying to sell several large parcels of land in Turner that are zoned agricultural and industrial.
Hillandale Farms is the 4th largest producer of shell eggs in the U.S. with 18.34 million layers, according to WATT Global Media’s 2025 Top Egg Company Survey.
