Entrepreneur, investor and restaurateur Jacques Klempf sold Jacksonville-based Foodonics International Inc., which does business as Dixie Egg Co., this week to Cal-Maine Foods Inc.
The Jackson, Miss.-based company announced it completed the purchase Wednesday.
“The timing is right,” Klempf said Thursday.
He said he did not have a succession plan for the now third-generation egg profession and noted other family changes: He got married last year and he has a grandchild.
“I am being pushed into that next part of my life,” he said.
That includes development of the Cowford Chophouse Downtown, as well as his role in Forking Amazing Restaurants and other ventures.
Forking Amazing comprises Cowford Chophouse, Ovinte, Burlock and Barrel American Whiskey, Bistro Aix and Il Desco.
Klempf said he also is in a joint venture with Cal-Maine on a fertilizer product.
Foodonics’ 300 employees were retained by Cal-Maine, he said.
Klempf declined to disclose the sales price. As part of the deal, Cal-Maine bought the Dixie Egg Co. Westside refrigerated warehouse from Klempf for $1.22 million.
That sale was completed Wednesday and recorded Thursday with the Duval County Clerk of Courts. The 20,000-square-foot warehouse is on almost 1.9 acres at 5139 Edgewood Court.
Klempf said he signed the letter of intent Aug. 1.
Cal-Maine said Wednesday it bought substantially all of the assets of Foodonics International and its related entities doing business as Dixie Egg Co. related to their commercial production, processing, distribution and sale of shell eggs business.
Cal-Maine said the acquired assets include commercial egg production and processing facilities with the capacity for about 1.6 million laying hens and related feed production, milling and distribution facilities in Georgia, Alabama and Florida.
It said the acquisition also includes contract grower arrangements for an additional 1.5 million laying hens.
It also means Cal-Maine has acquired the Egg-Land’s Best Inc. franchise with licensing rights for portions of certain markets in Alabama, Florida and Georgia as well as Puerto Rico, Bahamas and Cuba, the company said.
Cal-Maine Foods says it is primarily engaged in the production, grading, packing and sale of fresh shell eggs, including conventional, cage-free, organic and nutritionally enhanced eggs.
Foodonics traces its start to Klempf’s grandfather, Jacob, who moved from Poland to the United States about 1920.
His first job after landing at Ellis Island was as an egg candler and he later moved to Wisconsin and began packaging and reselling eggs bought from local farms.
Edward, the youngest of his three children, moved to St. Petersburg, eventually finding a job as an egg buyer with a distribution business.
Heading back to Wisconsin, he stopped in Jacksonville to sell some eggs that were in cold storage. He stayed, married and had three children. Dixie Egg was founded in 1948.
Jacques Klempf joined the business full-time at age 21 and became president in 1993 and CEO in 1998.
@MathisKb
(904) 356-2466