When companies get a product name just right, when they pick the absolute best name possible, it’s like poultry in motion. From the New Hampshire Business Review:
Like many visionaries, John Packard, founder and president of Portsmouth-based Pure Barnyard, was looking for a better way to do something — in this case, fertilize his lawn without worrying about his grandchildren playing on the grass and chemical run off into the ocean near his home.
He was visiting the Holland office of his other business, Gemini Valve, when his epiphany came in the form of a chicken. Much of Holland is below sea level, so runoff of manure is a severe issue there. According to Packard, the Dutch had developed a process of eliminating most groundwater contamination by refining chicken manure.
“I went to the processing facility that had eggs coming out one end and packaged fertilizer out the other,” quipped Packard.
In 1998, he formed Pure Barnyard and began importing the product from Holland, calling it “Cockadoodle Doo.” He began selling in select stores around Boston “just to see if there was a market. There was indeed a market.”…
…Two years ago, Pure Barnyard developed a relationship with Perdue Farms Inc., which has one billion chickens at its facility in Maryland — the highest concentration of chickens in the world, said Packard. “Each chicken produces about 70 pounds of raw waste a year. Times one billion — that’s a lot of manure,” he said.
Which makes it perfectly at home on this blog. Maryland does indeed have the biggest concentration of chickens in the world, but just barely. Last year’s competition for the title was fierce, and they eeked out a squeaker. This year’s contest is a barn burner that’s only half over. “Old Number Two“, Maryland’s pluckiest competitor, is laying eggs at a world class pace, so don’t touch that dial. One of ’ems gotta crack.