Eberly Poultry

Eberly Poultry has been a proud family-owned heritage since 1947. Levi W. Eberly grew-up in the same rolling hills of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland that is still home to the poultry business operated by his son Bob. In many ways little has changed since earlier generations of Eberly's settled in this area. Horse drawn buggies filled with... Amish and Mennonite farmers still crisscross the community and small-diversified farms remain a significant industry. Eberly Poultry is still a family-owned business that takes pride in the poultry it produces. In the early 1940's grandfather Harvey Eberly raised and slaughtered live poultry on his farm and sold the birds at a farmers market stand in the Lancaster Farmers Market located in the Olney section of Philadelphia. The dressed chickens were shipped packed in barrels of ice. In 1945 his oldest son Levi purchased a used truck and began to haul live poultry to processing plants in the Philadelphia area and a couple years later bought the retail poultry stand from his father. In 1952 Levi acquired a portion of land from the family farm and built a small processing plant. More farmers market stands were opened during the 1950's and '60's. Poultry and eggs were processed in the beginning of the week and sold at the market stands Wednesday through Saturday. As more stand holders stopped processing their own poultry, the Eberly's processing business of fresh dressed chicken, turkeys, capons, Muscovy ducks, geese and rabbits increased. The business continued to grow and in the mid '70's various game birds, pheasants, partridge, quail and mallard ducks were added to the processing. The market stands grew to five and were now in the Philadelphia, West Chester, Downingtown, and Lancaster areas. In 1983, as demand for Eberly products continued to increase, an application was made to the USDA for a grant of inspection and Eberly began to ship poultry to New York City and Washington D.C. A year later Eberly started to grow all naturally raised chickens. This idea was ...Read More