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Simply Essentials sold to California family farm company

Members of the Pitman Family Farms family pose for a photo at one of their chicken sites. Company leader David Pitman is on the right. Photo submitted
Members of the Pitman Family Farms family pose for a photo at one of their chicken sites. Company leader David Pitman is on the right. Photo submitted
By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Simply Essentials, the chicken processing plant that opened in Charles City last winter, has been sold to a family-owned California chicken company.

Dennis Krause, Simply Essentials CEO, called the sale “very positive” news for the Charles City plant, and said it would not affect current employment rates here.

Simply Essentials logoKrause, who is based at Simply Essentials’ headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas, told the Press Monday evening that the company has been sold to Pitman Family Farms, located near Fresno, California.

Simply Essentials had been majority-owned by a private equity firm, Tillridge Global Agribusiness Partners, which is an affiliate of NGP Energy Capital Management of Dallas.

Tillridge sold Simply Essentials to Pitman.

“Pitman Farms has been in the premium chicken business for three generations,” Krause told the Press.

“This is very positive for Charles City,” Krause said. “We’re able to partner with an experienced chicken producer with deep experience in food marketing. This is really a positive thing for the plant.

“It’s tremendously positive for the Charles City plant to have a strategic partner,” he said.

Krause said he will remain as Simply Essentials’ CEO, and the management team and employees at the Charles City plant have been notified of the sale.

SImply Essentials announced the purchase of the closed Cedar River Poultry plant in Charles City in June 2016, and said it would invest more than $30 million in the plant with the goal of producing “high-quality, premium chicken products that meet the demands of the health-focused consumer.”

“Simply Essentials is building a facility with unparalleled levels of technology, efficiency, sustainability, safety and animal welfare,” Krause said when the plant purchase was announced in June 2016.

“This will result in a better tasting, healthier end product for sure, but the plant is being designed to be safer for plant workers and will require far fewer natural resources to run the plant because of its unique processing design,” he said in 2016.

Krause said Monday evening that the plant is in a “high-growth mode” and just beginning to ramp up production after going through start-up adjustments.

“We’ve been stealth in the community” so far, Krause said. “Startups are not easy.”

When asked whether the company had been experiencing financial difficulties, Krause laughed and said, “No CEO would discuss that.”

“We’re very committed to Charles City and this plant,” he said. “That’s a state-of-the-art plant. It’s extremely valuable in the industry.”

Krause said there are more than 250 employees currently at the plant. The company has exceeded its minimum employment estimates and “will continue to exceed that.”

Donnie Peters, the Simply Essentials plant manager in Charles City, declined to comment on the sale Monday evening.

Efforts to contact David Pitman, the leader of Pitman Family Farms, were unsuccessful Monday evening.

Pitman Family Farm’s website, www.maryschickens.com, says the company has been in business for more than 60 years and has raised poultry for three generations. Its products are sold nationally under the labels Mary’s Free-Range Chickens, Mary’s Free-Range Turkeys, Mary’s Free-Range Ducks and Mary’s Free-Range Geese.

“Don Pitman began raising free-range turkeys and chickens in 1954,” the website says. “His son, Rick, continued to raise turkeys and named them after his wife, Mary. Their son, David, continued the family tradition of raising chickens.

“Our turkeys and chickens are named after Mary because she has studied nutrition and read labels for 25 years, looking for pure products in an effort to regain her health. Mary’s Chickens are chickens that Mary would buy for her family.”

The company has been called one of the largest “high-welfare” poultry operations in the country and is a supplier to the Whole Foods Market grocery store chain that was recently purchased by amazon.com.

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