Well, of course our namesake Nellie, my pet hen from when I was 7 years old, has since gone up to Hen Heaven (nest in peace Nellie the hen).

But all of her friends live across a wide swath of the U.S., on the family farms that partner with us to produce Nellie's Free Range Eggs.

Nellie's Hens Range Far and Wide

Years ago, as the popularity of our special eggs grew and grew, we decided that we didn't want to become the very thing that had nearly put us out of business – a giant egg farm. Instead, we found like-minded farmers and farm families that just wanted to make a good living while working on their own independent farms. Furthermore, we wanted to help rural farm communities continue to be vibrant and viable.

As Nellie's Free Range Eggs continued to grow, partner farms began to pop up all over the northeast, in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, and Pennsylvania. As more grocery stores started to carry us further south and farther west, we began adding farms in those places too.

Go West (and South), Nellie!

The new stores carrying our eggs have increased even faster than our farm partnerships can keep up with, however. We now sell our eggs in all 50 states, from Maine to Florida, on over to California and Washington. We are thrilled to offer our remarkable free range eggs to customers across the country. But, we know that many of them would like to buy from a farm closer to them, or even in their own state. That's because they want to support their own farm communities and to reduce the impact of shipping food long distances. As a Certified B Corp, we support that too, and we're steadily adding farms to the west and to the south.

Thoughtful Growth

While we partner with over 300 farm families to produce our Certified Humane Free Range eggs, each new farm is added with care. It typically takes several years from the time we start a conversation with a prospective farmer to bringing in their first flock. That's because it's essential that we ensure they share our values around sustainable, humane farming. We also need to know that they will be smart and reliable farmers. Egg farming is not easy, and we are careful to make sure that anyone trying it for the first time fully understands what they are getting in to. We provide substantial support to them throughout the long process, on everything from getting a bank loan to learning what to do if a hen isn't feeling well and needs extra attention.

We are very proud of our farm families and look forward to expanding even closer to the rest of our customers soon.