Once a small incubator company, Petersime has grown into a proud world leader and pioneer of incubation and hatchery technologies. This year, Petersime celebrates a milestone in its long history, which started exactly 100 years ago with the invention of the world’s first electric incubator.
Petersime NO.1: a revolution in commercial incubation
The roots of the Petersime brand we know today can be traced back to the American town of Gettysburg, Ohio, where entrepreneur Ira Petersime established a small family business called The Petersime Incubator Company. In 1922, he and his son Ray invented the Petersime NO.1, the world’s first electric incubator. A revolution in commercial incubation, the NO.1 model sparked numerous innovations that would perfect the incubation process in the following century.
For over 25 years, the American-made incubators were imported to Europe. In 1949, Georges Bohez – active as a Petersime sales agent in Belgium and the Netherlands – reached an agreement to start producing the redwood incubators under American license. Petersime nv in Olsene, Belgium was founded on the very same site where the company is still located today.
Following several incubator improvements by the Petersime family since their invention of the NO.1 model, the American license agreement ultimately ended in 1966. This meant the true kick-off for Petersime nv’s international growth, as we introduced our own innovative incubators and hatchery solutions to the poultry market.
Reinforcing the Petersime brand worldwide
While Petersime continued to grow and launch successful innovations, our company was acquired by an international investment group in 1984. The following years, the Petersime brand set itself apart as a symbol of leadership in the global poultry market, from Europe over the Middle East to Asia and Latin America.
Petersime has always been devoted to investing in research and development since its early days. That’s why, in 1998, Petersime and the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) formed a long-term research partnership. This allowed us to deepen our incubation knowledge as a market leader and contribute new value to our customers, with innovations such as the patented Embryo-Response Incubation™ technology.
Along our strong focus on technology, Petersime has also dedicated great importance to offering customers efficient and fast support, as well as extensive training opportunities. This is possible thanks to the strong cooperation between the centralized customer service at the Belgian Headquarters and a network of experienced engineers and experts located around the world.
The combination of Petersime’s continuous research and development and extensive customer care has further strengthened our mission in the past few decades, which is to help customers reach maximum hatchability, and superior chick quality and uniformity, while keeping operational costs at a minimum.
What Petersime stands for today
While it all started with the Petersime NO.1 in 1922, the world’s first electric incubator invented by Ira and Ray Petersime, Petersime once again secured its pioneering role with the launch of X-Streamer™, the first intelligent incubator that turns data into maximum hatchery performance. Together with the Eagle Trax™ cloud-based data solution, the range is a milestone for digitalization in the hatchery.
Today, Petersime is active in over 150 countries. 500 million chicks are born in Petersime machines, week after week. Proud of our long history as a world leader in incubation, we are committed to ensuring our customers maximum profit for life.
