Pohlmann sold the egg-laying business to Ohio Fresh, a partnership ostensibly controlled by Donald Hershey and Orland Bethel, whose egg operations in Gettysburg, Pa. had run afoul of environmental authorities.
Ohio Fresh's predecessor company, Buckeye Egg Farm, was hatched in the early 1980s by Anton Pohlmann, who was later banned from owning farms in his native Germany for abusing his livestock and an employee, who was sickened by the nicotine spray used to fight parasites on chickens.