ELLERBE — Hundreds of people took advantage of the Perdue Farms poultry sale at the Berry Patch late Thursday morning.
Berry Patch owner Lee Berry said they opened up the sale, scheduled to begin at 10 a.m., about 45 minutes early because of the crowd, with deputies from the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office helping direct traffic from the road to the drive-thru line.
Berry said at one point, there were about 100 vehicles in line, backed up to the intersection of Cargo and Haywood Cemetery Roads.
The refrigerated Perdue trailer was filled with 600 cases of sliced turkey breast and boneless skinless chicken breast at discounted prices.
The chicken was gone by 11 a.m. Forty-five minutes later, there were only 30 cases of turkey left.
Berry sliced open a few cases to show the potential customers what they would be buying.
There recently have been several similar truckload poultry sales across the state.
Mountaire Chicken had one in Bladen County on Wednesday and Lake Wheeler Road in Raleigh was closed because of the traffic for a House of Raeford sale on Thursday.
Berry added that since the government-induced shutdown began to slow the spread of the coronavirus, he's seen new customers from around the county who normally don't make the trip to Ellerbe.
