On August 28, The Network was able to tour Vital Farm’s Egg Central Station right here in Springfield, MO. If you couldn’t make it, check out this re-cap from Network member, Dee King, who was able to attend and left feeling for egg-cited about the work Vital Farms is doing!

“Springfield is home to an incredible facility, Vital Farms, that distributes eggs to 12,000 stores nationwide. The Network toured the facility and learned about the operation that processes nearly 2 million eggs a day in west Springfield. We put on hairnets, removed all jewelry, and had our hands sanitized by a state-of-the-art automatic handwashing machine so we could get close to the operations. We walked through massive refrigerators housing millions of eggs, and learned about the painstaking process Vital Farms goes to in order to sort, clean and package their eggs. The only thing more impressive than the equipment that handles thousands of eggs at a time, is learning how Vital Farms is the leader in Certified Humane pasture-raised hens. Each hen gets a minimum of 108 square feet of pasture to roam, making the eggs taste better, and of course, improving the quality of life for the hens.

The highlight of the tour for me was when I asked why they choose Springfield. I was told that several years ago when Vital Farms was choosing a city to build they narrowed it down to two cities. Both cities would have been an excellent choice. The scale was tipped by the assistance Vital Farms received from the City of Springfield and the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce. Wow! It was a great experience to get a behind-the-scenes look at Vital Farms, and hear how our City officials and Chamber of Commerce helped bring Vital Farms to Springfield!”