Costco’s 100 Million Chickens Will Change the Face of Nebraska

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Can a single company reshape a landscape? That’s the question at play in Nebraska, where Costco, one of America’s most powerful companies, has the potential to impact residents, farmers, and the environment in complex and unprecedented ways.

At the center of the move is the company’s $4.99 rotisserie chicken. In 2014, Costco reported selling 78 million of these processed, four-pound birds a year. In order to guarantee a steady supply and maintain the price, Costco fixed its eye on Nebraska as the best place to start raising and processing its own supply of chickens, and “break free of the monopoly” held by companies such as Tyson and Pilgrim’s Pride, much like it did for sausage and hotdogs with its Kirkland plant in Tracy, California.

In June, the company broke ground on a giant new poultry processing facility in Fremont, about an hour west of Omaha. The plant will process more than 2 million chickens a week, or more than 100 million birds a year, and provide as much as 43 percent of Costco’s rotisserie chickens, as well as around one third of the raw birds it sells.

Read more on Civil Eats.