Mar-Jac Poultry, Inc.

Mar-Jac Poultry, Inc. operates under USDA FSIS establishment number P32 at 1020 Aviation Blvd in Gainesville, Hall County, Georgia. The federal record lists poultry slaughter and poultry processing activities, a large size class, a grant of inspection date on file of December 18, 2011, and a slaughter volume category of 5.0, the highest volume tier in the FSIS listing. No custom-exempt activity is reported to FSIS.

The company describes itself as a fully integrated poultry production company headquartered in Gainesville, roughly 50 miles northeast of Atlanta. According to its website, brothers Marvin and Jack McKibbon founded the business in 1954 as a small processing plant serving a cooperative of Northeast Georgia growers who had been hauling live chickens as far as Detroit and Chicago. A grower marketing cooperative bought the plant from the McKibbons in 1962, and the company was consolidated under its current ownership in 1984. The site reports a hatchery in Lula, Georgia, opened in 1989, a 40,000 square foot freezer with blast capability begun in 1995, and a feed mill in Maysville, Georgia, completed in 2005 that produces over 8,500 tons of feed per week for nearly 200 contracted poultry farms.

The website states the Gainesville plant processes 2,000,000 chickens per week, up from 450,000 birds per week in the 1980s. Birds are raised on contract broiler farms with an assigned field specialist per farm. The company states its entire plant has been halal certified since 1985, that it earned an A level British Retail Consortium certification under the Global Food Safety Initiative, and that it received a 100 percent rating for compliance with National Chicken Council animal welfare standards in a 2013 announcement. The phone number in the federal record is (770) 536-0561; the company website lists 770-531-5000 with a fax of 770-531-5015.

Mar-Jac reports no custom-exempt activity to FSIS, so the plant is not listed as a custom or per-head processor for independent farmers bringing their own animals. Its stated supply model is a contract grower network of nearly 200 poultry farms in Northeast Georgia, supplied with chicks from the company hatchery in Lula and feed from the company mill in Maysville, with a field specialist assigned to each farm to verify compliance with safety and quality programs. Booking procedures, grower contract terms, and any fees are not stated in the sources. Growers interested in the contract program would need to contact the company directly at the numbers on file.

Mar-Jac Poultry, Inc. operates under a federal grant of inspection, so product from this plant can be sold anywhere in the United States, which matters if you sell online or across a state line. FSIS does not list a custom-exempt activity for this plant.

The company states plainly that Mar-Jac Poultry does not sell to the general public, individual restaurants, or convenience stores, and that it sells primarily to wholesale distributors and national fast food establishments. No retail counter, bundle, delivery, shipping, or online ordering option for households is described in the sources.

If you are buying a half or quarter animal, the plant is where the animal is processed; the farm sells you the animal. Read how to buy a half cow for the sequence and the math.