The modern, fully integrated poultry processing industry has its origin in he late 1940s and early 1950s. Visionary men with names like Perdue, Tyson, Jewell and Bagwell saw the enormous potential of chicken as a high quality but inexpensive alternative to pork and beef, traditional staples in the American diet. In Cumming, then a small rural community in northeast Georgia, Leland Bagwell, a schoolteacher, saw the emergence of the poultry industry as a tremendous opportunity. Rather than focus on the edible parts of the chicken, as did many of his peers, Bagwell decided to recycle chicken by-products into value-added feed ingredients. In 1949, Bagwell started North Georgia Rendering Company and offered rendering services to the many processors who has settled in northeast Georgia.
     In its first year of operation, the company processed 150,000 pounds of chicken by-products weekly. Today, as American Protein, Inc. (API), it produces that same amount in 10 minutes. Processing

First, part of the Cuthbert facility was converted to produce both prime and refined meals for sale to premium pet food producers (Eukanuba, Purina, Iams). Construction then began on a new pet food plant at the Hanceville property, which began production in 1997. Both facilities are highly automated, state-of-the-art operations, which can be easily expanded to meet the seemingly insatiable demand for quality pet food ingredients.
     The Hanceville division, a platinum sponsor of AP&EA, has an annual production of 1.9 billion pounds of inedible poultry products or 300,000 finished tons of poultry fat, feather meal and poultry product meal. It cost $8.1 million of natural gas and $2.3 million of electricity per year to process the raw material. Two-hundred-fifty-five employees work to keep the location running and 90 drivers haul the raw and finished products out of Hanceville. They haul 1,000 loads and travel 130,000 miles per week.
     The Hanceville division is the largest poultry rendering complex in the world, and has two factories onsite. One makes products that are sold to pet foods companies and the other produces feed ingredients for the rest of the animal kingdom.
     “API considers themselves an extension of the poultry industry because of the service we proved them,” said Fred Cespedes, vice president at the Hanceville Division. “We feel a close relationship with the Association.”
     Cespedes, an AP&EA board member, also says that working so closely with the poultry industry has given him a great advantage.      “As a board member of AP&EA, I have come close to the issues that affect the poultry industry,” said Cespedes, “and have a better perspective of industry issues and how they are addressed.”      AP&EA would like to thank API and Fred Cespedes for their dedicated support and outstanding service to the poultry industry.

over four billion pounds of by-products annually, American Proteins has become the world’s largest processor of allied poultry products. Once a single poultry-protein conversion plant, American Proteins has become an international operation with global interests in protein and oil production.
     Under the leadership of Bagwell’s son, Thomas N. (Tommy) Bagwell, now the chairman and chief executive officer of the company API has grown rapidly during the last three decades. The company currently employs 650 people at 12 locations.
     API produces poultry meal, feather meal and poultry oil at its four poultry rendering plants in Cumming and Cuthbert, Ga., and Hanceville, Ala. The four plants produce over 600,000 tons of finished meals and oil each year. These nutrient-rich feed supplements are marketed to the poultry, pet food, and livestock industries.
      Six years ago, API enhanced its customers’ profitability by entering the pet food ingredient market as a major supplier of high quality pet food meals and oils.