McDonald’s eggs east of the Mississippi all come from Michigan
On a typical day, McDonald’s restaurants nationwide serve nearly 5.5 million eggs. And it turns out that every egg served by McDonald’s east of the Mississippi River comes from a farm in Ionia County.
Did you eat an Egg McMuffin this morning? Maybe a bacon, egg and cheese cookie? Maybe a sausage burrito? You have a little taste of Michigan.
For decades, Herbruck’s Poultry Ranch in Saranac has supplied McDonald’s with all of the eggs used in its restaurants in the eastern United States.
Herbruck’s dates back nearly 100 years when Harry Herbruck Sr. started an egg delivery service in the Flint area. The company’s delivery area grew to include Detroit and Saginaw, then finally west into Mid-Michigan around St. Johns. In 1958, Herburck’s son, Harry Jr. started Herbruck’s Poultry. What started with around 6,000 chickens in 1958 has grown to over 10,000,000 hens today.
That means Herburck’s Poultry Ranch, just north of I-96 in Ionia County, has about the same number of chickens as the entire state of Michigan.
Times have changed for Herbruck’s. Instead of rows and rows of coops, the poultry giant is moving to completely cage-free eggs and committing to be 100% cage-free by next year. A state law passed in Michigan several years ago prohibiting the sale and/or production of all non-caged eggs by 2025, and Herburck’s is on track to meet this requirement nearly two years earlier.
And it’s not just McDonald’s that serves Herbruck’s eggs. Here in Michigan, Eggland’s Best and Born Free eggs are among the many store brands that come from the Saranac Herbruck facility.
Herbruck’s provides cage-free white, brown and organic eggs; classic white and brown eggs; free-range and free-range organic eggs; as well as pastured and pastured organic eggs.