The Bell & Evans Timeline
1894
Howard H. Bell of Bellmawr, New Jersey, starts a poultry business on his family’s farm.
1910
Bell expands his poultry business by partnering with another local farmer, Carlton Evans, forming “Bell & Evans.”
1926
Bell & Evans opens its first poultry plant in Camden, NJ.
1927
Bell & Evans is officially incorporated.
1958 
C.F. Manbeck, Inc./Farmers Pride began private labeling Bell & Evans poultry to Bell & Evans’ stringent specifications.
1984
Clarence Manbeck (right) retired and sold his company to Scott Sechler (left).
1985
Sechler started requiring cement floors and disinfecting and cleaning the chicken houses between each flock.
1986
Sechler (left) purchased the Bell & Evans brand from the Bell family and merged it with Farmers Pride.
1998
Bell & Evans introduced an all natural feed and started raising birds without antibiotics.
2000
Bell & Evans completed its $10 million plant expansion, doubling the size of the facility. This brought its total number of employees to over 700 and total farm families to over 90.
2001
Bell & Evans introduced chicken nuggets.
2005
Bell & Evans Retail Outlet opened for business in Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania.
2005
Bell & Evans opened its $26 million state-of-the-art 100% Air Chilling facility.
2005
Bell & Evans launched gluten free nuggets and gluten free tenders.
2009
Bell & Evans launched its organic line of products.
2010
Bell & Evans introduced innovative freezer-safe recyclable packaging, made with #1 PETE recyclable materials.
2011
Bell & Evans introduced Slow Induction Anesthesia (SIA) and the Bell & Evans Humane Animal Welfare standard, which garnered praise from the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and Temple Grandin.
2015
Bell & Evans opened a $110 million, 160,000 square-foot Further Processing, Packaging and Par Frying Facility.
2016
Bell & Evans launched a premium line of ready-to-cook, gluten free, organic items.
2017
In July, Bell & Evans opened the world’s first Organic Certified, Animal Welfare-Focused Chicken Hatchery.
2017
In November 2017, we had the first hatch of our New Breed, Das Klassenbester™, higher-welfare chickens.
2021
In December 2021, we opened our brand new Organic-Certified Chicken Harvesting Facility.
