The Delmarva poultry industry is an economic mainstay for the region, a major player in the industry nationally, and the birthplace of the commercial broiler industry.
It produces 559 million broilers, roasters and Cornish hens a year, totaling 3.4 billion pounds of meat worth $1.9 billion at the wholesale level, according to Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc. (DPI), a trade association.
The peninsula produces about 7 percent of broiler chickens in the U.S., and would rank seventh nationally in broiler chicken production if it was a state.
Delaware’s Sussex County produces some 200 million chickens a year, more than any other county in the U.S., according to DPI.
A University of Delaware study of the state’s agriculture industry, published in March 2011, valued the poultry industry at almost $3.2 billion a year, accounting for more than a third of agricultural output, and well ahead of other farm categories such as dairy or fruits and vegetables.
The industry traces its roots to a Mrs. Wilmer Steele of Ocean View, DE who ran a small laying flock, and in 1923 started a brood of 500 chicks, 387 of which were sold for 62 cents a pound, live weight.
In 1924, she raised 1,000 chickens and by 1926 the flock had grown to about 10,000 broiler chickens. Two years later, she was raising 25,000 chickens to sell at an early age for meat rather than eggs.
That idea caught on around Delmarva among people who wanted tender young chickens for frying, roasting and broiling rather than the stewing chickens they had previously used after their egg-laying days were over.
To meet the growing demand for meat production, hatcheries opened, feed mills were set up, and processing plants moved in to produce chicken for major markets.
Including Allen Family Foods, the industry now consists of five poultry companies running 10 processing plants, 13 hatcheries and 11 feed mills, together processing 11 million chickens a week, according to DPI data. Together, they employ about 15,000 people, around 2,273 of who work for Allen in its Delaware, Maryland and North Carolina plants.
Each job in the poultry-processing industry creates 7.2 elsewhere, according to DPI calculations. They include drivers of the 150 tractor-trailers that leave Delmarva every weekday to deliver chicken to major markets in the U.S. northeast and mid-Atlantic regions.
The economic and social importance of the peninsula’s poultry industry is celebrated each year at the Delmarva Chicken Festival, whose 62nd showing took place this year on June 17 and 18.
The event began in 1948 as a backdrop to the “Chicken of Tomorrow Contest,” a competition to develop better chicken meat. The following year, organizers seeking to promote the young broiler industry added a chicken-cooking contest to the festival.
The event is well known for a chicken cooker that was originally the world’s largest frying pan. It was built by the Mumford Sheet Metal Works in Selbyville in 1950 and used until 1988 when it was replaced with a new model measuring 10 feet in diameter like its predecessor.
The new pan, weighing 650 pounds, holds 180 gallons of oil and can cook 800 chicken quarters at a time. It cooks an estimated 8,000-10,000 pieces of chicken during the two-day festival which was held this year in Georgetown.
The festival, which includes a trade show, craft exhibitions and live music, has been canceled only twice: in 1984 and 2002, both because of a disease threat.