Herbruck’s Celebrates Franklin County Warehouse
CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. — Herbruck’s Poultry Ranch has not yet started construction of its nearly $100 million egg-producing facility in Montgomery Township, Pa., but it is already storing and shipping eggs from a former warehouse in Greene Township, Pa.
For now, the cold-storage plant on Sunset Pike near Chambersburg serves as a waypoint for eggs that the fourth-generation family business produces in Michigan. The eggs coming into Chambersburg are shipped across the East Coast.
Eleven people are employed in Chambersburg.
“Our next step, of course, is to build a farm. We own the property, and we’re committed to the Mercersburg project,” said Greg Herbruck, company president.
Herbruck said he’s not sure when construction will start for eight poultry barns on Corner Road south of Mercersburg.
The company plans hire 190 people to work at that site, where 2 million hens will produce organic and cage-free eggs.
The eggs, like their Michigan counterparts now, will be stored between 34 and 40 degrees in the 15,000-square-foot Chambersburg warehouse previously occupied by VETTER Forks, which moved.
Jim Byrum of the Michigan Agri-Business Association traveled with the Herbruck brothers Wednesday for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the $2 million cold-storage plant.
Byrum praised the family for its excellence, creativity and innovation, particularly in terms of the methods they developed to manage manure and reduce the odor associated with it.
Byrum said the company essentially has millions of employees because it treats its chickens like employees.
“When you talk about a family farm, here it is,” he said.