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.

I have been getting a lot of requests lately to explain the difference between water and air chill as it relates to chicken processing.

Water chill when I first started back in the ‘60’s was a stainless tank filled with ice and spring water. That tank may have held 50 chickens. The bird temperature going into the tank was in the 90 degrees Fahrenheit range.

The birds chilled for hours before we pulled them out to cut and pack. We never used chlorine and I am not sure we knew what chlorine was back in those days.

Today the industry standard is still water chill but with a least cost high volume and high yield twist to it.

The procedure is a long refrigerated u shaped tube which could be over 100 feet long, and hold 30,000 to 50,000 gallons of heavily chlorinated water. The chickens are mechanically forced through the length of the chiller, absorbing lots of dirty chlorinated water. The force of moving the chickens inside the chiller is very damaging- breaking bones and tearing skin. At the end of the chiller, the chickens are elevated out of the tank and hand hung on the processing line. Many years ago we operated such a water chiller, so I know what I am talking about and I was happy to see it go.

The Bell & Evans Air Chill story probably started over 20 years ago while visiting a small plant in Germany. The owner of that plant engineered that system for all the right reasons and not just marketing hype.

Over the years I have visited poultry plants all over the world, many that converted from chlorinated water chill to air chill. Many installed cheap, poorly designed, and inefficient systems but were able to get marketing hype labeling the chicken as being air chilled.

By the time we could afford to build a first class Air Chill system, we knew what we wanted to achieve and what we didn’t want.

Below is an excerpt from our website explaining how we air chill our birds.

Our system consists of three different cooling chambers; each is closely monitored to maintain a specific temperature and humidity during the process. To assure proper chilling, the birds traverse almost two miles of track, taking them 2 hours and 45 minutes to move through the system. Unlike other Air Chill chambers, ours has a unique, single level chilling line that prevents cross contamination from birds on higher tracks dripping onto those underneath.

This slow chill process is also more effective in tenderizing the meat. Since our chickens do not depend on ice water for chilling, the chicken’s natural juices are not diluted in, or replaced by the water in a conventional water chiller. While in these conventional chillers, chickens may absorb 7 to 8% of their body weight in added water – and that water may contain chlorine. (Chlorine is added to conventional chillers to inhibit bacterial growth.) This water “weeps” out of the meat and is trapped in the “diaper” you find in fresh chicken packaging .

Since our Air Chill System uses cold air not water to chill our chickens, we are able to save tens of thousands of gallons of water each day. And since water is not weeping from the chicken, we will now be able to use recyclable and reusable shipping containers.

Benefits of the Bell & Evans Air Chill System

• Bell & Evans Air Chilled Chickens retain their own natural juices.
  Each bite is incredibly more tender and full of flavor.
• Bell & Evans Air Chilled Chickens are individually slow chilled.
  No water or chlorine permeates the meat or dilutes the flavor.
• Bell & Evans Air Chill System is environmentally friendly.
• Lower water usage, tens of thousands of gallons saved each day.
• Longer shelf life.
• Reduced human handling.
• Cleaner, better appearance.
• Closely monitored temperature controlled environment.

Below are two pictures, the first showing the effects of water chill and the second is of our air chill system. You decide which chicken you would rather eat:

Water Chill?

Or Air Chilled?