Staff Report
WARSAW — A mainstay in Kosciusko County agriculture, Creighton Brothers is selling off its egg production operations after 100 years of business.
Cal-Maine Foods, the largest egg producer in the United States, announced the acquisition of the shell egg, egg products and prepared foods assets from Creighton Brothers LLC, including Crystal Lake LLC, for about $128.5 million.
Creighton Brothers and Crystal Lake are both headquartered in Warsaw.
Headquartered in Ridgeland, Miss., Cal-Maine Foods, the largest egg company in the United States annnoucned the sale in a news release.
Cal-Maine is funding the acquisition with available cash on hand
The Times-Union reports that Creighton Bros company president Mindy Truex said the sale involves poultry production units and that other farming operations as well as its Crazy Egg Cafe, will remain part of Creighton Bros.
Sherman Miller, president and chief executive officer of Cal-Maine Foods, said in the news release that the acquisition advances its strategy by expanding the scale and geographic reach of its shell egg platform across both specialty eggs and conventional eggs.
“Together with the Creighton Brothers and Crystal Lake team, we will build on the strong foundation already in place — combining our operational excellence, deep customer relationships, supply chain expertise, rigorous capital deployment and robust systems to accelerate growth and unlock new opportunities,” Miller said.
Truex said the change is best for its workers and added that last year was bittersweet as they negotiated the sale at the same time they celebrated the milestone anniversary.
Creighton Brothers and Crystal Lake will be fully integrated into Cal-Maine Foods’ existing operations, including its 177 employees, the release states.
Truex told the Times-Union:
“All the employees — except for the cafe and myself and Tracy Nichols — all the rest of the people that work out on the farms, our crops crew, the feed mill crew and the plant employees and things were immediately transferring over to Cal-Maine.”
