Cal-Maine Foods and Rose Acre Farms to build shell egg production unit in Texas

Cal-Maine Foods and Rose Acre Farms have entered into a joint venture to build and operate a shell egg production complex near Bogata in Red River County, Texas.

Under the current plan, complex will initially house 1.8 million laying hens out of its total capacity of 2.9 million.

The unit will licence and make use of Rose Acre Farms’ patent-pending, cage-free aviary designs and systems.

Cal-Maine Foods chairman, president and CEO Dolph Baker said: "We are pleased to enter into this production joint venture with Rose Acre Farms to expand our production capabilities and respond to increased customer demand for cage-free and other speciality eggs.

"Considering the uncertain regulatory framework in our industry right now, it made sense to partner with Rose Acre Farms to share the costs and mitigate the risk of such a large-scale aviary style egg production facility.

Construction is underway and is expected to be completed by August, which will lead to the creation of 80 to 100 new jobs.

Rose Acre Farms CEO Marcus Rust said: "We are proud to partner with Cal-Maine Foods in this new joint venture.

"Red River Valley Egg Farm provides a unique opportunity to leverage our combined strengths and capitalise on the growing demand for speciality eggs. This joint venture will allow us to better serve customers who are looking for a trusted supplier of cage-free eggs."

Cal-Maine Foods specialises in producing, grading, packing and selling fresh shell eggs such as conventional, cage-free, organic and nutritionally enhanced varieties.

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Image: The new egg farm will have an initial capacity of 1.8 million laying hens. Photo: courtesy of amenic181/freedigitalphotos.net.