Hillandale Farms, giant egg producer, sells for $1.1B

Hillandale Farms, among the nation’s top egg producers with a corporate office in Hempfield, was sold last month for $1.1 billion to a Luxembourg-based company.

Hillandale Farms, founded by Orland Bethel in 1958, sold its 20-million chicken operations in late March to Global Eggs, according to news reports.

Hillandale Farms has production facilities in the Gettysburg area, as well as in other areas in the Northeast, the Midwest and Southeast. Hillandale produces conventional, cage-free, free-range and organic eggs, according to Watt Poultry, a poultry industry newsletter. Hillandale also produces butter and cheese that it sells to supermarkets.

Bethel could not be reached for comment.

Reuters reported that Gregory Cessna, chairman of Hillandale Farms, agreed to the deal with Global Eggs because investor Riccardo Faria “wants to sustain the business.”

Bethel, 88, has used his wealth to advance medical research into spinal stenosis, a condition for which he has been treated. He has provided the University of Pittsburgh about $43 million through his family foundation — the Orland Bethel Family Foundation — to help establish a new center at Pitt for musculoskeletal research. A biological specimen repository will be created within the Orland Bethel Family Musculoskeletal Research Center.

Bethel was diagnosed with spinal stenosis in 2014 and suffered from severe hip and lower back pain. He went to Dr. Joon Lee of Pitt’s Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and UPMC for treatment. He underwent several surgeries and regained his mobility enough to play golf at the Greensburg Country Club, the facility he helped to rescue when it was in bankruptcy in 2004.