Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. says it is strengthening its prepared foods platform through new leadership appointments and targeted prepared foods production capacity expansions.

Johnathan Zoeller has joined Cal-Maine Foods as chief financial officer, prepared foods, bringing over 25 years of experience as a senior financial and corporate accounting executive. He most recently served as vice president, treasurer and head of investor relations for Westlake Corporation, a global diversified industrial company, where he led the global treasury operations, cash management, credit, collections, risk management and investor relations functions for the Fortune 500 company since 2018.

In addition, Dave Jordan has been promoted internally to president, Echo Lake Foods, previously serving as senior vice president, operations. Jordan is a food and beverage operations leader known for modernizing manufacturing networks, driving large-scale transformation and building high-performance, people-centered cultures. He brings expertise in enterprise operations, capital improvement execution and continuous improvement across complex, multi-site organizations to the role.

“Talent is at the center of every chapter of sustained growth,” says Sherman Miller, president and chief executive officer of Cal-Maine Foods. “We are thrilled to welcome John and celebrate Dave’s well-deserved promotion. Their leadership, expertise and dedication will be central to our prepared foods platform, and we are excited to have them as part of the Cal-Maine Foods’ management team as we continue to grow and serve our customers.”

In parallel, Cal-Maine Foods is launching a new $15 million network optimization and capacity expansion project at Echo Lake Foods, expected to add 17 million pounds of annual scrambled egg production by mid-fiscal 2027.

The project consolidates all scrambled egg manufacturing into a single, modernized facility, creating a more efficient, centralized operation and expands capacity with a new production line at the facility to support both near-term demand and long-term organic growth. By centralizing production, Echo Lake Foods eliminates redundancy across sites, streamlines workflows and strengthens supply reliability. 

In addition, the upgraded equipment and automation are expected to improve yields and reduce labor requirements. Together, we believe these improvements will enhance Echo Lake Foods’ operational efficiency, increase throughput and position the network to meet rising customer demand as part of Cal-Maine Foods’ broader long-term prepared foods strategy.

This investment builds on the previously announced $14.8 million high-speed pancake line project, which is expected to add an additional 12 million pounds of annual production through early fiscal 2027.

While these expansion initiatives are underway, Echo Lake Foods has and will experience a temporary reduction in production volumes and higher costs, which began late in the second fiscal quarter of 2026 and are expected to continue through the remainder of fiscal 2026.

In addition, Cal-Maine Foods announced that its joint venture, Crepini Foods, will invest $7 million through fiscal 2028 to add 18 million pounds of additional production capacity. This growth will be achieved through a series of new equipment and line installations, which is expected to gradually increase capacity over the next two years and expand Crepini Foods’ volume by more than sevenfold.

In total, these planned investments are expected to grow Cal-Maine’s prepared foods production capacity by more than 30% in the next 18-24 months.

“These prepared foods investments are a critical component of our multi-year plan to strengthen mid-cycle earnings, enhance portfolio resilience and capture accelerating demand for high-protein, ready-to-eat and convenience formats,” Miller says. “By investing in our facilities and building an exceptional leadership team, we believe we are creating a bigger, stronger, more capable prepared foods platform for the years ahead.”