Atlanta entrepreneur opens Georgia's first kosher chicken plant

MACON - It took a recycling entrepreneur and eleven commuting rabbis to turn an old Southern plant here into Georgia&#39;s first kosher chicken processor. <br> <br> The market for kosher foods, which follow strict Jewish preparatory procedures, is growing -- a trend Atlanta entrepreneur Johnny Imerman saw when he opened King David Kosher in January. <br> <br> Now, with 140 workers, including rabbis who fly in Monday-Thursday from Montreal, New York and Florida to perform the three-thousand-year-old Hebrew rituals, King David is churning out 16,000 birds per day and is expected to hit the 100,000 per-day mark as the plant nears capacity. <br> <br> Imerman, co-founder of Atlanta-based Regional Recycling, bought the former Cagle&#39;s Incorporated chicken-processing plant in December for $28 million. He said his interest in kosher chickens stems from his keeping kosher at home. <br> <br> Murray Shaw, managing editor for Kosher Today, said interest from people who are not Jewish accounts for much of the growth, along with the buzz created by the recent kosher organic movement. <br> <br> Though there were 9,200 kosher food plants in the United States, King David is one of only three or four that produces kosher poultry. <br> <br> Imerman said the time-intensive process raises the chicken&#39;s cost by 30 to 50 percent. <br> <br> The chickens must be processed in cold water, rather than the more conventional hot-water treatment that makes feather removal easier. <br> <br> The chickens&#39; necks must be cut with a special knife, which must remain free of nicks or cuts in the blade. After the feathers are removed, the birds are salted and soaked in an hour-long procedure that is critical to kosher process.

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