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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. Salisbury is the largest city in Eastern Shore of Maryland, the state's Eastern Shore region, with a population of 33,050 at the 2020 United States census ...
. Perdue Foods is a major chicken, turkey, and pork processing company in the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
. 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 with his wife, Pearl Perdue, who had been keeping a small flock of
chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated subspecies of the red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus''), originally native to Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago and is now one of the most common and w ...
s. The company started out selling table eggs, then in 1925, Perdue built the company's first hatchery, 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 ...
s instead of eggs. His son Frank Perdue 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
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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, also referred to as vertical consolidation, is an arrangement in which the supply chain of a company is integrated and owned by that company. Usually each ...
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 was named Chairman, becoming the third generation of leaders from the Perdue family.


Modern history

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 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 broiler industry, chicken, beef, and pork after JBS ...
. 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. Day retired as CEO in July 2023, and would be succeeded by Perdue's chief operating officer Kevin McAdams.


Criticisms and controversies

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 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 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
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. In 2010, the Assateague Coastal Trust 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 primary respo ...
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. It has been reported that in the 1980s, Perdue twice sought assistance from then-Mafia boss Paul Castellano to fend off a union's effort to represent workers at his company, according to a federal commission on labor corruption.


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