<FONT color=blue>[QA Online Extra]:</FONT> A Look inside Case Farms' Winesburg, Ohio, Plant

Founded in 1986 through the purchase of a processing plant in Winesburg and a hatchery in Strasburg, Ohio, Case Farms has since expanded into the Southeast with processing plants in Goldsboro, N.C., and Morganton, N.C., and a genetics division in Troutman, N.C.

While USDA requirements are that Salmonella rates be maintained below 10 percent, Case Farms maintains a consistent rate below five percent, has dropped this to 2.5 percent in recent months, and has now set its sights on consistent rates of less than two percent.

Case Farms’ low Salmonella rate is made possible by maintaining a high quality of poultry coming into the plant. “We take it all the way back to the breeders,” said Live Operations Manager Tom David. “Our replacement breeder stock is all Salmonella free — they come to us Salmonella free.”

Required by USDA to perform two temperature tests per day, Case Farms performs one each hour because of its importance to the end quality of the product. And where hourly checks are required, Case Farms performs quarter-hour checks.

Case Farms recently started expanding its production, jumping up from 260,000 birds per week to about 400,000 birds per week. By April, the company hopes to have that number up to 500,000, with an ultimate goal of 700,000 birds per week in the next three years.