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Cal-Maine Foods has bought a 132-acre farm in Middletown, with some of its facilities seen here, for $13 million. | DBT PHOTO BY KATIE TABELING[/caption]
MIDDLETOWN — The largest producer of shell eggs in the United States has bought a 132-acre farm in Middletown as part of its acquisition of some of the assets of neighboring egg producers in a $110 million deal.
Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. of Mississippi bought the farm on Warwick Road for $13 million from ISE America June 28, according to property records.
ISE America is an egg producer incorporated in Cecil County, Md., although its parent company is the Japan-based food conglomerate ISE Food Holdings.
The Middletown farm was part of a network that produced cage-free and conventional eggs, as well as liquid egg products. ISE America reported having a total of 4.7 million egg-laying hens in its farms, one million of which are cage-free.
Along with the farm on Warwick Road, Cal-Maine Foods bought all of the ISE egg assets in a deal valued at $110 million, as well as its “extensive customer distribution network” across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. Outside the Middletown farm, the deal also added production sites in Maryland, New Jersey and South Carolina, a first for Cal-Maine Foods.
The deal also adds 1.2 million pullets, feed mills and 4,000 acres of land to Cal-Maine’s network across its four states.
“We are excited about the opportunity to significantly enhance our market reach in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states with the acquisition of these assets from ISE,” Cal-Maine Foods President and CEO Sherman Miller said in a prepared statement. “The added production and distribution capabilities will allow us to serve new customers and expand capacity, particularly in the Northeast, which is largely a new territory for Cal-Maine Foods.”
Cal-Maine Foods did not respond to a request for further comment.
Founded in 1957, Cal-Maine produces 44.5 million eggs per year and sells them through popular brands such as Egg-Land's Best and Land O' Lakes. In 2023, the public company reported that conventional shell egg sales comprised 65% of its revenue.
