At a conference earlier this month, Bell & Evans president Scott Sechler shared expansion plans for the Fredericksburg-based chicken company.
The news came during the Univest Ag Summit held Friday, February 1 at Shady Maple. The event was organized by the Souderton-based bank, which specializes in loans for dairy, poultry, beef cattle, swine production, cash crops, and greenhouses.
According to the report by Lancaster Farming, the company is set to add 3.6 million birds to its current 1 million birds per week slaughtering capacity. The additional capacity will come from a second processing plant scheduled for the next few years, as well as increase in processing speed at the existing plant made possible by a Trump administration regulatory change.
Sechler also announced that the company would be opening a combined medical and hiring center near its processing plant to better serve (and recruit and retain) its 1,700 full-time employees. The medical portion will be run in partnership with Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Bell & Evans supplies Whole Foods (its largest customer), Publix, and Schnucks, as well as Wegmans, which buys all of its organic chicken from the company.
Read Lancaster Farming’s report for more details on Sechler’s speech.
PA Department of Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding attended the meeting as well, posting this Facebook update.