A Lengthy Island rooster farm is promoting what it touts as “recent,’’ natural, regionally sourced poultry — however its health-conscious clients could also be being duped into shopping for simply Perdue meat at an inflated value.
Raleigh’s Poultry Farm in Kings Park is seemingly repackaging bulk Perdue chickens — one of many nation’s largest industrial meat manufacturers — and passing it off as natural native product, a New York Put up investigation discovered.
The farm was beforehand cleared of wrongdoing by a Division of Agriculture investigation.
“We get [the chickens for sale] from a neighborhood provider, so it’s all recent,” an worker instructed a Put up reporter posing as a health-conscious buyer Friday.
However Perdue containers with out natural labeling had been noticed within the farm’s trash behind the shop the identical day and seems to inform a special story — one which not too long ago additionally surfaced in a state Division of Agriculture probe.
In February, state inspectors began investigating Raleigh’s farm based mostly on a tip that it was repackaging rooster from Perdue — which has no farms on Lengthy Island — and promoting it as “native” and “natural,” DOA data obtained by The Put up present.
The farm’s president, Catherine Raleigh-Boylan, acknowledged to inspectors that the enterprise receives and repackages Perdue rooster from a wholesale provider however denied that she marketed them as regionally sourced or natural, in accordance with the doc.
On the time, Raleigh’s web site listed its chickens on the market as “pasture-raised” and “organically-fed” and boasted that the farm “been natural earlier than it was the cool factor to do” — earlier than the location was taken down after the state’s investigation.
State inspectors took no additional motion on the time, saying that repackaging Perdue rooster for resale shouldn’t be shouldn’t be a violation of any legislation or regulation, so long as the farm doesn’t falsely promote the product as regionally sourced, in accordance with the DOA.
“As acknowledged by the President and confirmed by the overview of invoices/product in inventory, the agency receives and repackages USDA processed ‘Perdue’ model of rooster from a wholesale provider,” the DOA’s investigation report learn.
The enterprise presently greets entrants with a large signal proclaiming it sells “farm recent,” “natural,” “free vary” poultry for “well being and wellness wants.” The Division of Agriculture didn’t be aware this check in its report discovering no wrongdoing by the farm.
When The Put up not too long ago visited the Suffolk County farm, workers marketed point-blank that the chickens come from a neighborhood provider and are utterly natural and recent, regardless of the empty Perdue containers sitting within the trash simply steps away.
The rooster, which isn’t offered up entrance with the remainder of the meat and needs to be retrieved from the again of the shop by an worker, is peddled to clients for $8.99 per pound for numerous cuts and $6.99 per pound on the entire fowl.
That value is a premium in comparison with the Perdue chickens at Cease & Store, which promote for roughly $2.50 much less per pound on most cuts and $5 much less a pound on entire chickens.
The farm has beforehand been cleared of wrongdoing by a Division of Agriculture investigation.
Raleigh-Boylan, who owns and runs the farm, has not responded to The Put up’s a number of requests for remark.
