GONZALES, Calif. — Metzer Farms’ John Metzer, Marc Metzer and live production manager David Dunlap recently sponsored a groundbreaking ceremony for their $6 million state-of-the-art waterfowl hatchery in Memphis, Tenn. This new hatchery will be a 21,000 square foot facility, the farm’s second and largest hatchery and will allow them to hatch more than 120,000 ducklings a week.
Once construction is complete, the hatchery will allow for faster and safer delivery of day-old birds nationally in collaboration with the U.S. Postal Service and FedEx, the company notes. Orders ranging from 2 to 5,000 ducklings and goslings will be taken to the Memphis FedEx hub, flown direct to their customer’s local airports the same day, and delivered to their local post office for pick up the next morning.
“We’re excited to be in Memphis and be able to provide ducklings and goslings to people overnight across the country,” said John Metzer, Metzer Farms owner. “We will be providing a service to our customers throughout the nation that no one else can match.”
In addition to their logistic alliances, the hatchery has also partnered with Tennessee Amish families that will provide them with the fertile duck and goose eggs for the hatchery. These eggs will be collected several times a week from each of these family farms, transported to the Memphis hatchery and incubated, hatched and shipped from there.
Metzer Farms Tennessee will be led by Marc Metzer who plans to hire 20 to 25 local employees in 2022 for the various positions that come with the hatchery, some of which include order fulfillment, hatching, candling, sanitation, egg traying, administration, and mechanical. The facility is slated to be operational by January and ready to ship out ducklings and goslings by February.
“The decision to expand to Memphis was a strategic step for Metzer Farms” said Marc Metzer. “We have access to the best transportation in the USA for our birds, a state-of-the-art hatchery that can easily triple its capacity and a wonderful group of farmers with whom we can easily expand our production.”
“With the Ducks Unlimited headquarters and the Peabody ducks, Memphis is on its way to become the Duck Capital of the world,” Metzer added.
