Delmarva Chicken Association (DCA) has launched a year-long educational campaign, “Growing For 100 Years,” to celebrate the innovation and growth of the meat chicken industry, which began a century ago in Ocean View, Delaware. Cecile Steele of Sussex County, Delaware, pioneered the industry in 1923 when she accidentally received a shipment of 500 chickens. This prompted her and her husband, Wilmer, to build the first broiler chicken farm on Delmarva. Within three years, this Delaware family had built coops for 10,000 chickens and jumpstarted an American innovation–a farm dedicated to raising chickens not for eggs, but to eat. Since that first broiler chicken flock in 1923, the industry has made remarkable advances, giving generations of family farmers a way to make a living from the land, serving as the backbone of Delmarva’s economy and protecting the environment by utilizing fewer resources to produce more chicken. Today, there are more than 1,300 family farmers on Delmarva, more than 18,000 chicken company employees and hundreds of allied businesses in the chicken community, working together to produce $4.5 billion worth of chicken a year.
“Cecile Steele’s inspired idea 100 years ago has impacted not only the Delmarva region, but America and the world,” said DCA Executive Director Holly Porter. “This campaign is about paying tribute to the farmers, chicken companies, and allied businesses advancing the industry, and looking forward to the bright future ahead for the chicken community.”
2023 is also the 75th anniversary of Delmarva Chicken Association, founded in 1948 to organize the Delmarva Chicken Festival and formerly known as Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc. |
