AVONDALE, AZ — Since the start of the pandemic, Hickman's Family Farms has been working to counteract supply chain issues through a new venture.
They wanted to find a way to reduce waste while packaging their eggs faster, so they dove into the world of recycling plastics.
"We got into this to recycle and to reduce waste in the industry," said Branden Hickman. "This was our easy way to kind of solve our own problems in the supply chain of the industry."
Hickman is the Operation Manager for the family farm's recycling venture located in Avondale.
He said buying packaging for their eggs was taking much longer than they wanted.
"The egg industry supply chain is a very difficult one," he said. "Packaging exceeds a month."
With the machines at the Avondale facility, he said, they can turn their products around to store shelves in about three days.
"(Bottle plastic) gets inserted into our machine where our machine actually decontaminates that... and then we mix it and turn it into sheet. That sheet then repurposes new products," Hickman said.
About four to five plastic bottles can make an 18-pack carton of eggs.
Now, they're not just making their own packaging either.
"We are branching out to new customers and new local businesses here in Arizona."
When ABC15 toured the facility in April, they were busy filling an order of plastic containers for a nearby bakery.
"I want to make a sustainable business here in Arizona," Hickman said. "I want to provide jobs and successful careers for people. At the same time, I want to have a solution for the globe and that, for here, is, instead of sending trash to a landfill, or maybe it hitting an ocean...we're actually going to reclaim it, reuse it, and pretty much recirculate it."
More than one million plastic bottles are recycled at the facility weekly.
