Cal-Maine Announces New JV For Specialty Egg Sales In Arizona

(RTTNews) - Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. (CALM) said Friday that it has entered into a new joint venture for specialty egg sales with Hickman's Egg Ranch, Inc.

Based in Buckeye, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix in western Maricopa County, Hickman's Egg Ranch has been family-owned and operated since 1944. With processing operations located in Arizona, Colorado and California, and capacity for about 6.0 million laying hens, Hickman's Egg Ranch ranks among the top twenty family egg farms in the United States.

Under the deal, the new joint venture, known as Southwest Specialty Eggs, LLC, will acquire the Egg-Land's Best, Inc. franchise for the state of Arizona with exclusive licensing agreements for the sale of Egg-Land's Best® and Land O' Lakes® branded specialty eggs and other premium brands.

Sales of Egg-Land's Best® specialty eggs accounted for about 14.3% of Cal-Maine's total shell egg sales in fiscal 2013.