Photography by Jeff Newton

Despite 65 years of business, tending to 5 million chickens and gaining entrance into the Arizona Farming and Ranching Hall of Fame, Hickman’s Eggs still embodies a small town presence in the Valley.


Clint Hickman can remember when his family’s eggs were all the rage. Thanks to the Atkins diet, Americans flocked to protein-rich foods. Eggs were a cheap way to get their fix. By 2004, the Atkins craze subsided, and Hickman’s Eggs experienced negative growth just like other egg producers.

But today, Hickman’s is poised for new successes. A string of awards and economic conditions could lead more Americans back to eggs, bringing a wave of new business to Arizona’s sole USDA-approved egg producer.

This year, the company marks its 65th anniversary with several expansion projects that have turned a once small farm in Glendale into a high-tech, hardboiled powerhouse with 5 million chickens.

“If we went back in time, my grandmother and my grandfather would be absolutely flabbergasted about how we’ve grown and what we’ve become,” says Clint Hickman, the company’s vice president of sales. “Hopefully in a good way.”

Bill Hickman, the company’s 80-year-old patriarch, remembers when his parents, Guy and Nell Hickman, sold eggs for a dime a carton in Kansas.

“One of my earliest memories is going to town on Saturday. Me and my brother would hold a case of eggs to keep the eggs from tipping in the car,” he says. “They’d take them to the grocery store and trade them for groceries.”

The Hickman family eventually moved to Arizona, and in 1944, Nell began Hickman’s Eggs with 50 hens on 67th and Missouri avenues in Glendale.

In 1957, the next generation of Hickmans expanded the business. Bill and his wife, Gertie, bought 500 baby chicks, and together, the Hickmans sold eggs to small grocers and restaurants across the Valley. In those days, Bill would work the farm in the morning and deliver eggs in the afternoon while Clint, one of Bill’s five children, would ride along in the delivery truck.

Today, three of Bill’s sons – Clint, Billy and Glenn – run the business. The family’s only daughter, Sharman, handles the company’s public relations.

Bill and Gertie still have their say in Hickman’s Family Farms. In fact, Bill’s office is front and center, where he sits every day as chairman emeritus.

“I’m just glad I have something to do,” he says. “I do very little, and I have an assistant to help me do it.”

Despite his modesty, it is apparent Bill guided the farm to success, as Clint attests.

“When my grandma started, there were thousands of small, little egg companies in Arizona alone,” Clint says. “When my parents took it over, there were still over 200 companies. It started to become more of a business than a backyard, sell-to-your-neighbors thing like my grandma was.”

Hickman’s Eggs bought its final local competitor in 1993 and is the only commercial egg producer in Arizona.
“Now we have buildings that could fit our entire farm from back in the day,” Clint says.

The company moved from its 91st and Glendale avenues location in 2003. The farm held a maximum of 300,000 hens, a far cry from its current capacity. Though necessary, the departure was bittersweet, Bill says.

“Where our farm was is a shuttle parking lot for a stadium,” he says.