In the 1970s, Dave Thompson, our founder and a former elementary school teacher, started his path toward organic composted fertilizer production with a simple science project for his first-grade students: watching chicks hatch. Soon, Dave began raising the newly hatched hens at the family farm, and his endeavor eventually grew into Pearl Valley Farms, one of the country’s only self-sustaining egg farms and home to over 1 million chickens. Through our Pearl Valley Eggs division, Dave began selling eggs throughout the area, and business boomed.

After years of caring for chickens and selling their eggs, Dave realized the mountain of chicken litter his chickens produced could be used as fertilizer, and his entrepreneurial mind went to work. After years of testing and analysis, he created a microbe-rich fertilizer produced through a natural aerobic composting process. Dave doesn’t use accelerants and he doesn’t heat his compost; he simply lets nature run its course and produce nutritious, plant-strengthening compost formulated to organically grow prosperous turf and plants.