Perdue Farms is the parent company of Perdue Foods and Perdue AgriBusiness, based in

Salisbury, Maryland Salisbury () is a city in and the county seat of Wicomico County, Maryland, United States, and the largest city in the state's Eastern Shore region. The population was 33,050 at the 2020 census. Salisbury is the principal city of the Salisbury ...

. Perdue Foods is a major chicken, turkey, and pork processing company in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

. Perdue AgriBusiness ranks among the top United States grain companies. Perdue Farms has 2021 annual sales of $8 billion.

History

Origin and war era

The company was founded in 1920 by

Arthur Perdue Arthur W. Perdue (1885–1977) was an American businessman and the founder of Perdue Farms along with his wife Pearl in 1920. The business was started in his backyard, and at the time only produced table eggs from chickens, but eventually grew in ...

with his wife, Pearl Perdue, who had been keeping a small flock of

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domestication, domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey junglefowl, grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster ...

s. The company started out selling table eggs, then in 1925, Perdue built the company's first

hatchery A hatchery is a facility where eggs are hatched under artificial conditions, especially those of fish, poultry or even turtles. It may be used for ex-situ conservation purposes, i.e. to breed rare or endangered species under controlled cond ...

, and switched to selling layer chicks to

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer mig ...

s instead of eggs. His son

Frank Perdue Franklin Parsons Perdue (May 9, 1920 – March 31, 2005), born in Salisbury, Maryland, was for many years the president and CEO of Perdue Farms, now one of the largest chicken-producing companies in the United States. Background Frank was t ...

joined the company in 1939 at age 19 after dropping out of college.

Post-war growth

The company was incorporated as ''A.W. Perdue & Son'' and Frank Perdue assumed leadership in the 1950s. The company also began contracting with local farmers to raise its birds and supplying chickens for processing as well as opening a second hatchery in

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia a ...

during this period.

Full integration

Perdue entered the grain and oilseed business by building grain receiving and storage facilities and Maryland's first soybean processing plant. In 1968, the company began operating its first poultry processing plant in Salisbury. This move had two effects: it gave Perdue Farms full

vertical integration In microeconomics, management and international political economy, vertical integration is a term that describes the arrangement in which the supply chain of a company is integrated and owned by that company. Usually each member of the supply ...

and quality control over every step from egg and feed to market, as well as increasing profits which were being squeezed by processors. This move enabled the company to differentiate its product, rather than selling a commodity. In 1991, Frank's son

Jim Perdue Jim Perdue is an American businessman. He has been the chairman and advertising spokesperson of Perdue Farms since 1991. He is a third generation leader of the company founded by his grandfather in 1920. Like his father, Frank, Jim Perdue grew u ...

was named Chairman, becoming the third generation of leaders from the Perdue family.

Perdue today

In 2013, Perdue was reportedly the third-largest American producer of broilers (chickens for eating) and was estimated as having 7% of the US chicken production market, behind

Pilgrim's Pride Pilgrim's Pride Corporation is an American, multi-national food company, currently one of the largest chicken producers in the United States and Puerto Rico and the second-largest chicken producer in Mexico. It exited bankruptcy in December 2009 ...

and

Tyson Foods Tyson Foods, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, based in Springdale, Arkansas, that operates in the food industry. The company is the world's second-largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork after JBS S.A. It annual ...

. In 2010, the corporate structure of Perdue Farms changed. A holding company, FPP Family Investments, Inc., owned by the Perdue family, became the controlling entity for Perdue Farms. The holding company also owns Perdue AgriBusiness, a grain operation; FPP Business Services, a shared business services company; and Coleman Natural Foods. Other subsidiaries include Heritage Breeders, LLC, which is responsible for developing the breed used by Perdue, and developing other lines of stock for sale to other poultry companies; Venture Milling, which creates proteins for livestock; Perdue Fats and Proteins, LLC, which sells pet and animal feed ingredients; Perdue BioEnergy, LLC, which works in the field of renewable energies; and Perdue AgriRecycle, which converts poultry litter into organic fertilizer products. In 2007, Perdue removed all human antibiotics from its feed and launched the Harvestland brand, under which it sold products that met the requirements for an “antibiotic-free” label. By 2014, Harvestland had grown to a $200 million business. In 2014, Perdue removed all antibiotics (including ionophores, which are antibiotics used in animals to promote growth, prevent disease and lower production costs) from its hatchery, and began using the “antibiotic free” labels on its Harvestland, Simply Smart and Perfect Portions products. In March 2017, Jim Perdue, chairman of Perdue Farms, announced Randy Day would be promoted from COO to CEO. Day would be the fourth CEO in the company's history. Perdue would remain as the chairman of the board of directors.

Criticisms

Perdue has been criticized for its factories' lack of adherence to some basic animal-welfare practices. The guidelines that Perdue follows, created by the National Chicken Council, have drawn criticism for allowing birds to be deprived of light, food, and water for long periods, and also for permitting animals to be hung upside-down by their ankles before slaughter. In 2010, the

Humane Society of the United States The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is an American nonprofit organization that focuses on animal welfare and opposes animal-related cruelties of national scope. It uses strategies that are beyond the abilities of local organizations. ...

filed a lawsuit against Perdue for violating a New Jersey consumer fraud law by applying the labels "purely all-natural" and "humanely raised" to its products when reasonable consumers would not consider the conditions Perdue chickens are raised in “humane.” The Humane Society filed a similar lawsuit in Florida in April 2013 after an appeal by Perdue to have a similar case rejected was turned down by a federal court. In response, Perdue issued a statement claiming that its practice “exceeds the National Chicken Council guidelines in several areas, including monitoring air quality in the poultry house,

video monitoring Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly tr ...

of live-bird handling areas at the processing plant and USDA audits of producer farms and...hatcheries.” Perdue has also been criticized for allegedly polluting the

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the ...

. In 2010, the

Assateague Coastal Trust Assateague Island is a long barrier island located off the eastern coast of the Delmarva Peninsula facing the Atlantic Ocean. The northern two-thirds of the island is in Maryland while the southern third is in Virginia. The Maryland sectio ...

sued Perdue for violating the

Clean Water Act The Clean Water Act (CWA) is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Its objective is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters; recognizing the responsibiliti ...

by allegedly allowing excessive chicken manure to run into the bay. The suit was later won by Perdue in October 2012, after the environmental group failed to establish that the waste runoff was from chicken houses.

References

External links

* (Perdue Farms) * (Perdue) {{Authority control Agriculture companies of the United States Brand name poultry meats Poultry farming in the United States Agriculture in Maryland Food and drink companies based in Maryland Privately held companies based in Maryland Meat companies of the United States Frozen food brands Meat processing in the United States Salisbury, Maryland Poultry companies American companies established in 1920 Food and drink companies established in 1920 1920 establishments in Maryland Perdue family Meat packers Family-owned companies of the United States