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A Brief History of Shelton's

Shelton's Turkey Ranch started in 1924 with one hen and one tom that had been given to Mr. & Mrs. Shelton as a wedding gift. It evolved into a champion breeding facility that received many awards for body conformation and feather color. As an offshoot of the trophy breeding business, the Shelton family began growing holiday turkeys for the folks in the Pomona Valley of Southern California. As demand for the broad-breasted Shelton turkey grew, the emphasis was placed on growing turkeys for the holiday market.

When the second generation Shelton farmer, Fred, died in 1969, the Flanagan family, Shelton's largest distributor, purchased the ranch and incorporated it into their own distribution business. They soon added chicken production to the mix and eventually began manufacturing and marketing value added products to the natural foods industry.

From those two turkeys and two people in 1924, Shelton's has grown into the largest Natural Poultry marketer in the country.

The basis for all of Shelton's 50 plus products are their own Free Range All Natural Poultry; Chicken, Turkey and Duck.

Shelton's chickens, turkeys and ducks are grown in free range conditions, which is defined by the USDA as ,'having access to the out of doors'. We raise our birds without the use of antibiotics or artificial growth stimulants. If any flocks of birds become sick, they are treated with a proper antibiotic and marketed under another label.

All of Shelton's value added products are made from our natural poultry as well as the finest natural ingredients available. We use no preservatives, flavor enhancers, modified starches, irradiated spices, animal protein or any artificial ingredients. Our ingredients lists read like home recipes instead of chemistry textbooks.

We don't do any fancy market research when developing new products, we simply re-formulate successful mass market items with natural ingredients and make them with our own poultry. The first criteria for a Shelton product is that it taste good. We won't sell anything that we wouldn't eat ourselves.

Shelton's is a family business in the clearest sense. All of the ownership and all of the upper management are made up of one family. We now have third generation Flanagans involved in our little family business. In addition to our own family, we support several other family agricultural businesses.

All of our turkeys are grown by a family business. All of our chickens are grown by another family business, and our ducks are grown by a third family business. These people are all experts in their individual fields. We capitalize on their experience and add it to our own to make our team.

Because some of our products require specialized equipment, we also use the talents and resources of a number of co-packers. We formulate a product and have the actual manufacturing done by our co-packer, to our specifications, with our poultry as the main ingredient. That way, we get to sell many more products than we would be able to make with our own limited capabilities.

In addition to the natural foods market, Shelton's poultry products are used in some of the finer restaurants on the West Coast. The chefs in these fine-dining establishments are attracted to the quality and consistency of our chicken, turkey and duck. We fabricate sized portions of all of our poultry so that when they serve 24 plates of boneless chicken breast, they are all done at the same time, and look similar on the plate. A blind tasting of two similar products is called a cutting. Whenever we participate in a cutting against other peoples' poultry, we blow them away. Our stuff tastes great! It might cost a little more, but most people think that it's worth the extra money.

You can expect to see us to continue development of more natural poultry products. We have to; we have a lot of mouths to feed.

Sincerely,

Gary Flanagan
For the Flanagan Family