Pete and Gerry's Organics

History

The Laflamme farm was initially founded by the CEO’s great-grandfather Robert Ward in the late 1800s. After beginning to scale up in the mid-1980s, the company Pete and Gerry’s was founded in 1995, after a merger between the farms of the Laflamme and Stanton families. The company began producing organic eggs in the late 1990s, as a response to the egg farming industry. The company also removed their laying hens from cages in order to produce their eggs cage-free. By 2013 the company had revenues of about $50 million.

Company overview

The CEO of Pete and Gerry’s is Jesse Laflamme, son of the eponymous “Gerry” and the cousin of the eponymous “Pete”, for which the company was named. The company distributes eggs grown organically by local small family farms located in multiple states, including Ohio, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Some of the farms that Pete and Gerry’s works with have been initially set-up by the company in order to be run by others within their prescribed designs.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “it has provided its new organic egg farmers architectural blueprints and lists of contractors and manufacturers for new organic-friendly henhouses, guaranteed their bank loans or directly financed their equipment purchases at zero interest.” The company also actively recruits organic farms to increase the number of farms whose eggs are sold as Pete and Gerry's eggs, having worked with other farms instead of expanding their own operations. As of late 2014 Pete and Gerry’s worked with about 80 farms.

Eggs

The eggs are both Certified Organic and Certified Humane: Raised and Handled. In addition to retail sales, the company also sells its eggs via the Internet. The packaging used by Pete and Gerry’s is made of clear recycled plastic, housing eggs by the dozen.