Koch Foods chooses SmartPro™ for the 2nd time to develop USA’s largest single stage hatchery

17 January 2018

Koch Foods chooses SmartPro™ for the 2nd time to develop USA’s largest single stage hatchery

Chicago-based Koch Foods, the USA’s 5th largest poultry integrator, has chosen Pas Reform and NatureForm to completely renovate its Henagar hatchery in Alabama. When completed, Henagar will be the largest fully integrated, single stage broiler hatchery in the Western Hemisphere.

Pas Reform and its US partner, NatureForm Hatchery Technologies, will install 84 SmartSetPro™ setters with a capacity of 132,192 eggs each and 92 SmartHatchPro™ hatchers, each with a capacity of 22,032 hatching eggs, to create a weekly setting capacity of more than 3.7 million eggs. 

As a fully integrated project, the contract also includes work to renovate Henagar’s climate control and automation systems. A complete new HVAC system has been designed for the hatchery, with 14 Daikin air handling units that use 100% outside air and air handlers equipped with the latest UV disinfection system. Boilers and chillers will also be replaced, including the addition of modern primary and secondary heat recovery systems, to make the hatchery one of the most energy efficient in North America.

A new hatchery automation system is designed to process 800,000 day old chicks in an eight-hour operating day. To achieve this, the system incorporates three transfer candling lines with individual stacking, destacking and clear egg removal; a double chick take-off line with destackers, separators and innovative, animal-friendly SmartCount™ chick counters.

SmartCenterPro™ hatchery information software will super-connect data from the entire hatchery, from the realtime monitoring and historic recording of Incubator climates, to the monitoring, counting and analysis of embryos and chick uniformity data gathered from hatchery automation processes.

Gary Davis, Vice President Eastern Division at Koch Foods , comments “Before embarking on a company-wide hatchery renovation-expansion programme, we tested Pas Reform’s equipment and technologies extensively in the Henagar facility. 

“Once we saw improvements in hatch and feed conversion rates, we worked with the Pas Reform/NatureForm team to evaluate the project’s viability and, based on return on investment calculations, our experience with the renovation of our Crossville facility and the very comprehensive support package that has also been a key success factor for other major hatcheries in the USA , the project was approved.”

Steve Warren, CEO of NatureForm Hatchery Technologies concludes, “This is a milestone for Pas Reform and NatureForm: a truly exceptional opportunity to supply and install a project of this size and calibre, as the world’s only single source supplier of fully integrated hatchery solutions.

Fully integrated solutions do not, says Steve Warren, stop when installation is complete and together, contractor and supplier have customised a SmartCare™ preventative maintenance and hatchery support contract that will proactively involve both company’s teams to maintain optimum hatchery performance.

“In considering the full scope of this project, we recognised that one of the major factors in the success of the work we had undertaken for House of Raeford was the implementation of a SmartCare™ Lifetime Services agreement,” he says, “and Koch’s senior team agreed." 

“This contract is future-focused at every level. It recognises that the time has come for a new, proactive paradigm in hatchery service and support and that with SmartCare™, we’ve got that covered.”

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Steve Warren, President Pas Reform North America