Empire Kosher

Empire Kosher Poultry, Inc.

Type	Subsidiary Brand
Industry	Food distribution
Founded	1938
Founder	Joseph N. Katz
Headquarters	Mifflintown, Pennsylvania
Key people	Jeff Brown, President Rabbi Israel Weiss, VP for Rabbinic Affairs
Products	Chicken, Turkey, prepared foods
Number of employees	750
Website	empirekosher.com

Empire Kosher Poultry, Inc. is the largest producer of kosher poultry in the United States. The company's headquarters, hatchery and processing facility are located in Mifflintown, Pennsylvania.

Empire Kosher was founded in 1938 in Liberty, New York by Joseph N. Katz, an Austrian-Jewish immigrant to the United States. The Katz family, including Joseph's son Murray, owned and ran the business for the first five decades of operation.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the Katz family recruited the rabbis required for the kosher production process from Mandatory Palestine as well as Jewish communities in Europe, and the company initially operated out of a garage in Liberty, New York. (The company's name comes from the nickname for New York State.) In the 1950s, Empire became known as an innovator in kosher food production.

Early in the 1960s, while still owned by the Katz family, the company relocated to Mifflintown, Pennsylvania, approximately 40 miles outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where it is still headquartered today. Katz purchased a processing plant in Mifflintown, and expanded production in order to meet the demand provided by the growing Jewish middle class. Empire became the first kosher food company to move into mainstream supermarket distribution.

In 1986, a fire destroyed the production line at the Mifflintown plant, and the Katz family invested nearly $20 million to rebuild and modernize the plant. Empire began to face increasing pressure from other kosher poultry processors, notably Agriprocessors (which has since ceased operations following immigration and labor raids and the conviction of its owner and CEO Sholom Rubashkin on felony financial fraud charges). In 1992, Empire was sold to private equity firm Apollo Management, and several years later sold to another private equity firm, J.W. Childs Associates, and the company carried a high debt burden.