South Carolina Business Review

S.C. poultry farmer invents new process

By Mike Switzer

Published April 4, 2025 at 6:30 AM EDT

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Chad Brubaker, founder of Innovative Poultry Products in Olar, S.C.

As a poultry farmer, our next guest began to tire of removing dead chickens from his two chicken houses with a 5-gallon bucket. So, as so often happens with the birth of a new business, a solution began to develop in his mind which eventually led to a mechanization process that he now sells to poultry farms across the country. Mike Switzer interviews Chad Brubaker, founder of Innovative Poultry Products in Olar, S.C.

Mechanization process developed by Chad Brubaker, founder of Innovative Poultry Products in Olar, S.C.

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Mike Switzer

After almost 20 years, Mike Switzer retired from Wells Fargo Securities in 2001 as Senior Vice President/Investment Officer and Certified Portfolio Manager. In 1999, he and his wife, Maggie, purchased and operated for eight years the Baskin Robbins ice cream store on Forest Drive in Columbia. They grew the store from a bottom-tier operation in the Baskin Robbins franchise system to one in the top 5% nationwide within three years, tripling sales along the way. While operating the ice cream store, Mike and Maggie received patents for a portable ice cream sink and fold-down sneezeguard they invented and in 2002 started Magnolia Carts, an ice cream cart manufacturing company, which they sold in 2013.

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