In 1997 Jeanne Groenewald, a wife and mother of two, decided to start rearing free range chickens in her back yard.
Concerned about her family’s wellbeing, she had become increasingly worried about the health impact of processed foods. When she reached the point where she point-blankly refused to feed her children any mass-produced chemically enhanced meat, Jeanne decided to start experimenting with free range chickens. After tasting her plump and healthy chickens, friends and family started placing orders. Jeanne knew she was onto something when she realized how great the demand was for humanely-reared chicken devoid of chemical enhancement.
Armed with a strong entrepreneurial spirit and a BSc Agriculture in animal physiology and genetics, Jeanne ultimately grew her small experiment into one of the South African poultry industry’s greatest success stories, while making a powerful contribution in the drive towards truly free range. In 2000 she established the state of the art Elgin Poultry Abattoir in Grabouw, and today she supplies almost 75,000 free range chickens per week to leading South African retailers, select deli’s and some of the Cape’s top restaurants.
Her humane farming practices and the stringent quality control measures in place at every step of her operations, ensures that consumers receive exactly what Jeanne set out to achieve: Drug-free, stress-free, antibiotic-free, animal by-product-free and unmistakably healthy tasting chicken.
