Photos by Olaf Starorypinski
IT DOESN’T SEEM RIGHT to describe a hen as cocky, but there is a certain swagger to the LaBelle Patrimoine chickens that Mike Charles raises in Lancaster County. “We think they are the most beautiful bird there is,” says Charles.
It may be the way they are raised: slowly, on a smaller scale, with no antibiotics. Maybe it’s the free access to pasture, sun, and shade. Or the locally grown cereal they eat from nearby Amish and Mennonite farms. Or maybe the gorgeous chestnut-colored birds are just born this way, the robust nature of a proprietary breed that Charles, founder and CEO of LaBelle Patrimoine, brought to Pennsylvania in 2018 through France’s Label Rouge program.
Charles, a sixth-generation poultry farmer, was looking for the best of both worlds: He wanted to continue his family’s traditional methods of farming, but with a modern twist that could stand out in a competitive market. He could see that today’s quality-conscious and ethically aware consumers wanted something different, yet wasn’t quite sure what that was. Out strutted this regal beauty, whom he named LaBelle Patrimoine, meaning “beautiful heritage.”
At first, he was happy just to have found a beautiful bird that would thrive in a cage-free environment. Then, when it won a local taste test among seven breeds he was raising, Charles knew had found the bird that he could build his business around.
Charles proceeded to make handshake deals with about 40 farmers in and around Lancaster County to raise the birds. Some of these farmers he’s known all his life. Now, seven years later, LaBelle Patrimoine chickens are widely available locally and along the East Coast.
Home cooks who want to support farms that raise their chickens ethically drive the popularity of the chickens. Chefs also marvel at the dynamic, remarkable flavor and structure of the chicken.
“Chefs tell me it’s a hard chicken to overcook,” says Charles. “I don’t know why, maybe it’s the [more mature] age of the chicken, but somehow it’s not as sensitive. And it just tastes different. The texture, the flavor. A different fat content. We hear all the time how people try this and they don’t want to go back to regular chickens.”
A CHICKEN THAT’S RAISING FARMERS
His modern approach to farming is steeped in lessons from five generations of poultry farmers in his family.
“When they came to Lancaster County from Switzerland in the late 1800s, they started growing tobacco. When they later found out that it negatively impacted health, they stopped and got into chickens, and it’s been that way ever since.”
He learned something more important than how to raise chickens. “Hard work and care about your neighbors. Know your community.” These are hallmark lessons from growing up in his dad’s butcher shop. He would help Amish and Mennonite farmers herd and hand-catch their birds and bring them to open markets that were challenging for their horse-and-buggy operations to reach.
Today, that personal connection with his neighbors drives him to take on the challenges of making farming sustainable for any well-run small family farm.
“I’m really on a mission to prove that we can do things differently and make it sustainable. That being different can be profitable. We want it to be a win-win for everybody.”
His quest led him to this unique chicken, the only one like it in America. He learned of the Label Rouge program, which shared his fundamental belief in animal welfare. French farmers created the certification program 65 years ago to preserve rustic breeds and promote farming traditions in face of the commercial stampede to industrialize poultry breeding. Through them, he found a breed that could thrive locally on a smaller scale. It would also allow him and his neighbors to keep the kind of farms that fit their family’s lifestyles and still be commercially viable.
The LaBelle Patrimoine breed is a perfect fit for the way Charles and his partners want to farm. “The birds want to be outside, to be pecking and scratching. Active. We’ve always been told that this is how chickens used to be. And that’s how we want to keep it.”
What makes the bird unique in the marketplace sounds very simple: It cannot be rushed. But the implications of this slow growth and longer life cycle are far-reaching for the economics and the quality of the chickens. It takes 10 to 12 weeks to reach full maturity and bring to market. This is roughly twice as long as birds on factory farms.
This longer lifespan seems to make their breast meat less “woody” and free from fat striping. This can occur when a breed grows too big too fast.
“Some of the more modern breeds are to the point where after they hit a certain size limit, their health really suffers. And that’s not OK with us,” says Charles.
So while the chickens enjoy a longer life grazing, chowing down on bugs, and taking in the fresh Lancaster County air, the farmer’s risk doubles. A bird that takes twice as long to mature costs twice as much to feed and care for.
That made the farmer’s biggest obstacle—financial resilience—even harder. How would they be able to borrow even more money to pay even higher costs, before they (hopefully) get paid for their work at the end of the production cycle?
That’s where Mike Charles’s community building comes into this modern day farming success story. He offered a different kind of arrangement.
As he started to recruit neighboring farms to help scale up his production, he could see that the economics and market logistics of small farms made this daunting. No matter how beautiful the chickens looked or how good they tasted, somebody had to cover their costs and find a buyer.
“I told the farmers, ‘I’ll supply the chicks, the food. I’ll pay for the heat and the bedding. I will be with you every step of the way. I’ll make sure the chickens get to market. And I will pay you as fair as I can,’” says Charles. “I take the financial burden off them, so all they have to do is worry about the health of the birds. Let’s just have healthy birds and it’ll be all right at the end of the day.”
Every farm he works with is different, so the arrangements are more of a conversation than a list of demands.
“We sit down at their kitchen table, roll up our sleeves and figure out what it would take to meet that family’s needs. How can we stay within our means and work with what we’ve got, but also do it at a higher level of animal welfare? It has to work for both of us. And it does. I’m seeing the birds flourish and the farms and the families flourish.”
The farmers get to farm much like their forefathers did, before factory farming put pressure on them to use chemicals and antibiotics and rush the growth of birds. “And the farmers want to do better, too. They love to see good healthy birds grazing and picking the dirt,” says Charles.
By working through LaBelle Patrimoine, they also get access to vast markets, like Whole Foods Markets and other regional chains. These are places none of them could get to alone. Whole Foods has been a foundation of LaBelle Patrimoine’s success since its chickens started appearing on the shelves in 2020, when they were named Supplier of the Year.
His partner farms range in size from a few thousand to 20,000 chickens. Some grow their cereal feed, which augments their grazing, right on site. Others have feed delivered from neighboring farms, 100 percent local. Some are more modern. Others are almost unchanged for generations. It’s that flexibility that makes the collaboration work so well for so many.
But one common thread among all the farms? The regard for animal welfare.
The brand is the only chicken producer certified by the Global Animal Partnership as meeting Step Level 4, which includes pasture access. They also recently earned the 2024 Good Chicken Award from Compassion in World Farming, the only U.S. producer named.
The USDA also approved the producers as Regeneratively Raised. This certification designates that chickens are fed regeneratively grown grain and raised on managed pasture. It’s also granted to farms where waste is composted and returned to the soil to improve soil health and carbon sequestration. LaBelle also received a grant from the Alliance for Chesapeake Bay to help define and quantify regenerative poultry practices and develop standards that other farms can adopt.
Even though LaBelle Patrimoine proudly accepted the industry’s top certifications and awards, they didn’t go chasing them. “It’s not like we had to make a lot of changes to the way we were raising our chickens. We were already doing all these things. We’ve always thought this was the right way to treat the birds to keep them healthy.”
DEFENDING THE FLOCK
Yet even the healthiest, best-treated poultry is subject to the threat of avian flu. The disease hit Central PA farms hard earlier this year. While his farms have not suffered any infections, Charles knows the threat remains.
“It’s a real threat for everybody in the industry, and we’re certainly not immune to it. But so far, our flocks remain healthy and we’re very thankful for that. Each farm has a biosecurity plan approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. We want to do everything we can to defend the flock.”
These plans involve spraying disinfectant on any vehicles arriving or departing the farms, wearing protective gear while interacting with the flock, and daily close monitoring of the health of the birds.
Eggs are one of those things we take for granted, like referees at a football game. When they become the headline, it’s usually because something has gone wrong.
The chickens came before the eggs, but LaBelle Patrimoine is expanding their layer production, too. They’ve been selling organic, pasture-raised eggs from a variety of breeds. These birds are raised similarly, not rushed or pressed into factory-level laying cycles. They’re also certified organic. The lucky birds roam through a luxurious 100+ square feet of space per chicken.
They are now adding a heritage layer breed called Americana. These birds produce the distinctive shells and deep orange yolks you’ll find in the Farmer’s Basket Brown and Blue Cage-Free eggs. Unlike the LaBelle Patrimoine chicken, the Americana breed can fly so they are kept in open areas indoors.
To maintain the highest biosecurity, the farms do not mix breeds. The broilers are raised separately from the layers, on different farms, with different farmer partnerships.
The extra precautions put in place to defend the flock from avian flu do come at a price, as farmers have had to raise prices to cover the costs of these new protocols. But Charles is hopeful. “We’ve hit the peak and prices are on the way down. It was a supply-and-demand issue. I think it will level out soon.”
He seems to be right, as national egg prices have dropped back to levels last seen in October 2024 after more than doubling to a peak cost of more than $8/dozen in March.
Eggs are one of those things we take for granted, like referees at a football game. When they become the headline, it’s usually because something has gone wrong. Amid the political controversies of inflation and cuts in safety inspections and the threat of bird flu, it’s critical to have local farms like LaBelle Patrimoine meeting the challenge of high ethical and quality standards in such a quiet, grassroots way.
As these chicken-and-egg stories unfold, we have a front row seat to see the story of one of the world’s specialty chicken breeds unfold. And we also have the delicious opportunity to savor the results.
You can find LaBelle Patrimoine in about 300 Whole Foods Markets, more than 100 regional specialty stores and co-ops including Kimberton Whole Foods in West Reading, Nature’s Way in Easton, Frey’s Better Foods in Hellertown, as well as restaurants like Social Still and Something Different in Bethlehem. You can also order from their online store.
They also offer organic eggs, and seasonal and heirloom turkeys, which can be found in Whole Foods Markets. Their newest offering, Farmer’s Basket Brown and Blue Cage-Free Eggs, are humanely raised and antibiotic-free. They’re sourced from small family farms in Pennsylvania and can be found at regional grocers, including all Kimberton Whole Foods locations.
