339: Frank Bergin on Feeding your Chickens.

Optimizing the diet for backyard poultry.


Frank is currently General Manager of Strategic Ventures & Innovation for Eggland’s Best, LLC (EB). He has always wanted to run a food business since he was a teenager working in his family’s summer bakery.  After spending seven years as a US Naval Officer, the next eleven years he helped grow iconic brands like Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, Jell-O, Cream of Wheat, Post Cereals, Balance Bar and Ritz Crackers. In his final role with Kraft, Frank led the turnaround and rebirth of the Back To Nature natural/organic business.

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He went onto pursue his passion for building smaller, more entrepreneurial businesses and since joining EB in 2010, where he has help the company’s revenue triple. It was in looking for new ways to keep that remarkable pace of growth going that Frank and the Eggland’s Best team hit upon the idea of selling its proprietary feed directly to backyard chicken farmers

In This Podcast:

Watching a bakery business fail, spending time in the navy on a destroyer, and then selling macaroni & cheese, might not seem like the background of a person managing part of a large poultry and egg business.  However, this is the path that led Frank Bergin to Eggland’s Best and helping them decide to offer their best proprietary feed to urban farmers.  He shares with us the reasons he joined the company as well as some significant statistics they found in their research and why they opted to put their feed on the shelves.

Listen in and learn about:

  • Being impressed by a family bakery business bankruptcy to study business
  • His time in the Navy and managing the sewage plant on a destroyer
  • Going to school to learn business and getting his start at Kraft foods
  • Moving to a smaller, yet more entrepreneurial opportunity at Eggland’s Best
  • Some serious statistics on chickens in the urban areas
  • The target customer of backyard chicken farmers
  • Ingredients in the feed – a recipe designed for healthier hens and eggs
“You’re taking care of your hens, and they’re taking care of your family”
  • Various recipes for the different hen ages
  • 100% vegetarian, with no added antibiotics, hormones or steroids
  • Finding the feed in the stores and being available to more urban areas

As well as:

  • His failure – The time in the Navy he steered his ship into the path of a carrier
  • His success – The next thing that he is doing
  • His drive – Being able to see a product he helped build on a store shelf
  • His advice – Don’t settle for ordinary

Frank’s Book recommendations:  

Your Best Recipes, Volume 2 an e-book from Eggland’s Best Recipe Contest

How to reach Frank:           

Website: ebchickenfood.com

UrbanFarm.org/EgglandsBest

This episode was sponsored by Health IQ. Visit them at healthiq.com/urbanfarm to support our show and to see if you qualify for lower insurance rates.


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