Wabash County, Indiana is now home to the first carbon-neutral, cage free egg production facility in the U.S.
“We’re just so thrilled to be bringing sustainability to egg production to an even greater extent,” says Sam Krouse, co-CEO of MPS Egg Farms based in North Manchester. They’ve teamed with a company based out of the Netherlands called Kipster to open a brand-new sustainable egg farm that’s very unique.
“Kipster has created a system that leads to the highest animal welfare and the lowest carbon footprint of any eggs in the world,” according to Krouse during the Kipster Farm Celebration event last week, which served as a “grand opening” event to highlight the Kipster company and it’s first farm facility outside the Netherlands.
The Kipster Farm facility, which is 30 miles west of Fort Wayne, is home to about 100,000 chickens who eat upcycled feed made of leftovers from sources such as old breads and cookies from large bakeries. Krouse adds that the facility also has several interconnecting barns that allow the chickens to move around more freely.
Krouse says there’s been a growing market for the Kipster brand of eggs.
“The Kroger company actually was the first one to look into Kipster in the United States and approached us—since we are one of Kroger’s suppliers—about bringing Kipster here,” says Krouse. “We have been ramping up distribution with them since December 2022 and we are starting to reach national distribution and hope to see it grow even further in the coming months.”
The eggs are sold at Kroger stores across the U.S. under the Simple Truth brand with the Kipster name on the carton. The eggs will be shipped into stores as far west as Alaska and California.
Krouse adds that the barns at the Kipster facility are built with large windows so school and tour groups can see how the chickens are being managed.
“We actually have a visitor’s center at the Kipster Farm where anybody can come in and see our birds and learn a little bit about the Kipster process,” says Krouse. “We’re doing something unique in sustainability. I think it’s a model that we hope to grow and we hope to bring as many people here to northeastern Indiana as we can to learn about it and see what we’re doing.”
Click here to read more about Kipster Farm.
Click below to hear C.J. Miller’s radio news story for Hoosier Ag Today.
Click below to watch a live stream from inside the MPS Egg Farms and Kipster Farm facility in Wabash County.
