At Bell & Evans our Certified Organic chickens and turkeys are fed non GMO Certified Organic corn and soybeans.  Our soybeans are extruded and expeller pressed into meal. No GMO seed is allowed by U.S.D.A. Organic Certifiers as enforced by division of U.S.D.A.

Bell & Evans sources only U.S. grown grain, whenever possible.  If we come up short, we may buy a limited amount from Canada or Argentina.

We do not Import Organic Grains from China.   With the cost of Organic grain being more than twice the cost of conventional, many dishonest operators have entered the business.

Bell & Evans non Organic Certified chicken products.

I would be very happy to produce all of our chickens & turkeys without using GMO grain.  At this time it is not possible for Bell & Evans to do that because of the following reasons:

• There is only a small percentage of non GMO grain producers left in the U.S.
• The Ethanol demand continues to take acres away from Organic and non GMO grain production.
• There is no U.S.D.A. or Certified enforcement for non GMO grain production or handling.
• As soon as we can find a reliable, honest source of non GMO grain, we will be very happy to deliver.
• I believe when we sell a product or a service to a customer, we need to deliver what they thought they bought.

We will double our efforts on procuring non GMO grain and will report again in the near future on the situation.

No Bell & Evans diets contain Hexane processed soybeans.

Unfortunately much of our food supply is being produced by Unhealthy and Unhappy employees.

At Bell & Evans we just started a new healthcare program for our team.  $0 Deductible, $0 Co-pay  and $0 Co-insurance.  We have taken away most financial issues for needed medical care.

Organic and Natural Food Retailers

Why are you allowing suppliers to feed their animals Soybean or Canola meal that was processed using the Hexane Slovent Extraction Process?  Simply because it is the cheaper method is not a good reason.  Hexane ends up in the feed, the vegetable oil, in the water and the air.  We are in 2013 there are lots of great alternative ways to process beans.

Please investigate what Hexane really is!

In my opinion, the Commonwealth is about to support their second biggest mistake in just a few years — the Perdue Hexane Extraction Soybean Processing Plant in Lancaster County. The first was the Ethanol plant in Clearfield County that went bankrupt.

Hexane extraction soybean processing was studied and turned down in Pennsylvania several times over the last 40 years. This old short cut is dangerous technology for producing soybean meal and consumer groups agree this meal should not be consumed by humans or animals, any more than the “junk” called DDGS which is the by-product of the Ethanol industry. Hexane is a chemical by-product of the oil industry that is explosive, smells like model airplane glue and is very dangerous, in fact it is considered a Hazardous Air Pollutant by the EPA. In my opinion, products derived from Hexane extraction or Ethanol by-product should be considered inhumane for humans or animals to consume.

Over 25 years ago, I realized what Hexane extraction soybean meal was and I quit using this junk in our Bell & Evans chicken diets as soon as possible. We have a fast growing soybean processing industry in PA using extruders and presses without chemicals. This industry produces both great quality consumer and great quality animal grade products.

At Bell & Evans we produce over 50,000,000 happy, healthy chickens each year using over 60,000 tons of extruded and expeller pressed soybean meal. There are more than a dozen extruding processing plants in PA who are happy to buy your soybeans and these plants were not built with state money.

Can you imagine an out-of-state company, like Perdue, trying to buy up all of the PA crops of soybeans and asking farmers to abandon organic crops, corn, wheat, vegetables and other food crops to plant more soybeans? What about the rest of us in PA? We already have a soybean shortage in PA.

Let’s rethink this deal and do the right thing for all of us, including the animals and the environment.

Please contact your local Representative, Senator, DEP, EPA or the Governor directly and let them know that you do not support this dangerous project.

(Please click here to see the ad as it will appear in local newspapers this weekend.)

When the retail food industry demands meeting a price point and a profit margin that may mean there is not much left for the producer.  It’s exactly how we push producers to do unscrupulous things.

For example, feeding animals Hexane produced soybean meal, arsenic, and DDGS ethanol by products loaded with sulfur and antibiotics.

In the poultry industry the list of short cuts and cost cuts could fit the “pink slime” description.

Let’s start moving the bar up.  It starts with consumers demanding retailers to carry brands that follow strict quality protocols.

Our government spent billions to subsidize and promote using millions of acres of precious American farmland to replace imported oil is unconscionable.

Now that corn is worth three times the past 20 year average at $9.00 per bushel and nearly half the U.S. crop is going to produce ethanol, we may have started a food inflation cycle that will grow out of control.

Can you believe that we slow down our oil imports and increase food imports!

We need to use American farm land for more than just fuel!

Out of desperation many animal production farms have resorted to using up to 20% ethanol by-products in their diets.  Ethanol by-products are dangerous- antibiotic and chemical laced loads of garbage! I would not feed any animal this kind of product ever.

Food vs. Fuel leadership has gone amuck!

We at Bell & Evans have not cut quality in anything we do and our plans are to continue to improve in all areas.  This year we added fully recyclable boxes to our program and just recently started our SIA system.  We now think that we have the humane slaughter method for poultry in the World.

Every year around this time I have people tell me they barbequed their chicken and, even though they keep adding BBQ sauce,  the meat was dry. There is a very simple answer to this problem. PAR BOIL your chicken before putting it on the grill. It eliminates the problem of dry, charred meat outside and raw meat inside.

Just fill a pot with water, place the chicken pieces in the water and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Remove the chicken from the water, cover and set aside until you’re ready to grill.  This allows the meat to rest and retain its juices.  (Save the water you used to simmer the chicken for a stock base later.) The chicken will not be fully cooked, but it will require less time on the grill and less chance of drying out the meat.

When the grill is ready, place the pieces on the grill, until one side is golden brown, flip and brown the other side. At this point, if you choose, add your BBQ sauce and grill for several minutes until the sugar in the sauce starts to crackle and carmelize. Remove and serve. You and your family or guests will love the great taste of Bell & Evans grilled chicken!

Here are some simple words to live by: If you can’t pronounce it… don’t eat it.

Read food labels… especially the ingredient list. If it sounds like a chemical experiment, put it down. Also beware of some ‘all-natural’ products that say they contain “natural flavorings.” These so-called natural flavorings are added to foods that lose flavor in processing.

The definition of natural flavor under the Code of Federal Regulations is: “the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional.” (21CFR101.22).

Natural flavorings include things like high-fructose corn syrup, glutamate, sodium benzoate, etc.; and are created by ‘flavorists’ and produced in laboratories. There’s nothing natural about it.

I’m proud of Bell & Evan’s ingredients and encourage you to read our labels. We use all-natural ingredients in every frozen ready-to-cook and fully-cooked product we make. No artificial colorings – No artificial flavorings – No fillers – No extenders. I promise you won’t need a degree in chemical engineering to read them!

It all starts with our unique air-chilled processing system. Every Bell & Evans chicken is air chilled, so no water or chlorine permeates the meat to dilute the flavor or add water weight. Our chicken retains its own natural juices and insures each piece is tender and full of flavor. Whether fresh or frozen, you’ll taste the honest natural chicken flavor in every bite.

Read… then taste the difference for yourself!

 The celebration of Earth Day is a great time for individuals as well as companies to rededicate themselves to protecting the environment.

At Bell & Evans, it is part of our Bell & Evans Best Practices Standard to be good stewards of the land year-round.

ON THE FARM

• Infertile Eggs are recycled – the liquids are separated from the shells and sent to a local methane digester to be converted to electricity. The shells are pulverized and used in fertilizer.

• Extruded and Expeller-pressed Soybeans – produce soy meal without releasing toxic Hexane gas into our environment. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) categorizes hexane as a hazardous air pollutant.

• Reclaimed Oil – oil, that is extruded and expeller pressed from soy beans, is converted to biodiesel and used by the trucks to transport grain to and from the mill.

• Chicken Manure – is composted for use on the farm or sold to other agricultural industries for fertilizer.

AT THE FACILITY

• Air Chilled Facility – our air-chilled system lowers our water usage by tens of thousands of gallons of water each day, over traditional poultry processing plants.

• State-of-the-art Wastewater Treatment Plant – wastewater effluent is discharged into the stream next to our plant, that is abundant with fish, muskrat, mink, frog and bird activity.

IN PACKAGING

• Fresh Packaging Trays – our new fresh product trays are made from 50% recycled materials and are PETE #1 recyclable.

• Frozen Packaging Boxes – are ‘paperboard packaging recyclable’ which means they are made from recycled or recyclable materials.

• Recyclable Shipping Containers – Since water does not weep from our air-chilled chicken, we and our retailers can recycle all of our shipping containers. Little changes can make a big difference.

Please join me in conserving our natural resources.

It’s the right thing to do.

When you buy organic, you assume you’re purchasing food free from pesticides, antibiotics and growth hormones. But there is so much more. Organic is a commitment to provide you with the highest quality foods, using sustainable agriculture’s best practices.

Not only must the be chicken raised on a certified organic farm, but also everything it’s fed must be organically grown and certified. This makes the feed more expensive and is why some organic poultry and livestock producers have switched to importing questionably ‘organic grains’ from China.

The nation’s pre-eminent organic farming watchdog group, The Cornucopia Institute, announced this month that the USDA has uncovered attempted fraud by a Chinese organic agricultrual marketer. Using falsified organic certificates, from a French USDA accredited certifying agent, the Chinese marketer certified crops, such as soybeans, millet and buckwheat, headed for the US market were organic.

Why should this concern you, the consumer?

Possible pesticides and antibiotics in your food chain and… you’re not getting what you’re paying for.

At Bell & Evans we use only United States grown grains, corn and extruded and expeller-pressed soybeans that have been grown on certified organic farms and tracked from the field to our feed producers. Sure this grain costs more, but when we say our chicken is 100% organic… we have the certifications to prove it!