A Long Island chicken farm is selling what it touts as “fresh,’’ organic, locally sourced poultry — but its health-conscious customers may be being duped into buying just Perdue meat at an inflated cost.
Raleigh’s Poultry Farm in Kings Park is seemingly repackaging bulk Perdue chickens — one of the country’s largest industrial meat brands — and passing it off as organic local product, a New York Post investigation found.
The farm was previously cleared of wrongdoing by a Department of Agriculture investigation.
“We get [the chickens for sale] from a local supplier, so it’s all fresh,” an employee told a Post reporter posing as a health-conscious customer Friday.
But Perdue boxes without organic labeling were spotted in the farm’s trash behind the store the same day and appears to tell a different story — one that recently also surfaced in a state Department of Agriculture probe.
In February, state inspectors started investigating Raleigh’s farm based on a tip that it was repackaging chicken from Perdue — which has no farms on Long Island — and advertising it as “local” and “organic,” DOA records obtained by The Post show.
The farm’s president, Catherine Raleigh-Boylan, acknowledged to inspectors that the business receives and repackages Perdue chicken from a wholesale supplier but denied that she advertised them as locally sourced or organic, according to the document.
At the time, Raleigh’s website listed its chickens for sale as “pasture-raised” and “organically-fed” and boasted that the farm “been organic before it was the cool thing to do” — before the site was taken down after the state’s investigation.
State inspectors took no further action at the time, saying that repackaging Perdue chicken for resale is not is not a violation of any law or regulation, as long as the farm does not falsely advertise the product as locally sourced, according to the DOA.
“As stated by the President and confirmed by the review of invoices/product in stock, the firm receives and repackages USDA processed ‘Perdue’ brand of chicken from a wholesale supplier,” the DOA’s investigation report read.
The business currently greets entrants with a giant sign proclaiming it sells “farm fresh,” “organic,” “free range” poultry for “health and wellness needs.” The Department of Agriculture did not note this sign in its report finding no wrongdoing by the farm.
When The Post recently visited the Suffolk County farm, employees advertised point-blank that the chickens come from a local supplier and are completely organic and fresh, despite the empty Perdue boxes sitting in the trash just steps away.
The chicken, which isn’t sold up front with the rest of the meat and has to be retrieved from the back of the store by an employee, is peddled to customers for $8.99 per pound for various cuts and $6.99 per pound on the whole bird.
That price is a premium compared to the Perdue chickens at Stop & Shop, which sell for roughly $2.50 less per pound on most cuts and $5 less a pound on whole chickens.
The farm has previously been cleared of wrongdoing by a Department of Agriculture investigation.
Raleigh-Boylan, who owns and runs the farm, has not responded to The Post’s multiple requests for comment.
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