Atlanta Poultry Expo really packs 'em in

ATLANTA - If there was a Super Bowl for poultry, the International Poultry Expo probably would be it. The three-day event is a showcase of everything from egg to chicken and all points in between.

What began 58 years ago in a downtown hotel is now 17 acres of the newest technology for the poultry industry at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.

"Even though I've been in the industry a long time and I've seen it develop, I'm still amazed," said Don Dalton, president of the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association, which sponsors the annual event.

"Every year there are new processes and products coming on the market," he said.

Dalton said that the show has grown in the number of attendees from outside the U.S., including Central and South America.

The event is one of the few places that the industry can assemble production equipment, some more than a story tall, in a working environment.

For Meyn Food Processing Technology, a Netherlands-based company that has a manufacturing plant in Flowery Branch, the expo is one of the largest that the company participates in.

The company has been showing its new plucking machine, which removes feathers from the bird, and its new Jacuzzi scalder, which uses a mixture of air and water to scald chickens.

Judith Koops, a company spokeswoman, said that the Atlanta show is one of the largest devoted exclusively to poultry.

Stork Food Systems, a company whose roots go back to 1944 as Gainesville Machine Co., was showing its newest machine, the RevoFormer.

Source: Gainsville Times