Perdue Inc.

Private Company, Headquarters Location
PO Box 1537, Salisbury, MD 21802-1537, United States
(410)543-3000, (410)543-3532 fax, http://www.perdue.com

Primary SIC: Poultry Slaughtering & Processing, Primary NAICS: Poultry Processing
Description: Manufacturing: Poultry and soybean processing, and poultry feed. Agriculture: Poultry hatcheries. Transportation: Grain storage elevators, transportation of live birds and refrigerated products. More

Headquartered in Salisbury, Maryland, Perdue Farms has grown to be the largest poultry producer in the Northeast and third largest in the United States. It was founded by Arthur W. Perdue in 1920 as a table-egg poultry farm. Frank joined his father's company in 1939 and built it into an industry leader, with Perdue now ranking among the Top 20 Largest Grain Companies in the U.S. The company is still family-owned and privately held. Sales are currently greater than $2 billion per year. Their products are sold in retail supermarkets, grocery stores and quality butcher shops, which covers a market area of almost 40 percent of the U.S. population. Presently Perdue employs about 18,000 at facilities in Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. Perdue operates 20 hatcheries, 13 feed mills, live production and breeder operations, and 17 processing/further-processing plants that produce more than 42 million pounds of chicken products and 3.5 million pounds of turkey products each week. This type of production helps the company meet the needs of retail, foodservice and international customers. The brand name is scene on many products, including whole birds, cut-up, Prime Parts chicken parts, "Oven Stuffer" roasters, turkeys and Cornish hens. Other fresh items include a seasoned chicken line, ground chicken, turkey burgers and turkey sausage, and the "Fit'n Easy" line of skinless, boneless poultry cuts. Fully cooked poultry products include "Short Cuts" carved chicken breast, "Chicken with BBQ Sauce" and chicken parmesan. Perdue "Individually Frozen Chicken" offers another type of convenience. "Cafi Perdue" entrees, a unique variety of gourmet chicken and turkey breast, and "Tender Ready" fresh fully cooked rotisserie style chicken offer menu versatility within foodservice channels. Other brands produced by Perdue include "Shenandoah", "Cookin' Good" and "Chef's Choice". The company also buys grain from local farmers for further processing, feed manufacturing and merchandising. They produce feed-grade soybean meals and crude soy oils at two crushing plants. They also have an edible oil refinery that manufactures vegetable oils for food companies. Three poultry by-product plants manufacture livestock and pet food ingredients. Perdue Specialty Feeds manufactures commercial aquaculture feeds. A commodities trading operation with offices in the U.S., Canada and Mexico allows Perdue to buy and sell feed products in the domestic and international marketplace. Perdue's international operations extends to over 30 countries worldwide. Main competition for Perdue comes from ConAgra, Gold Kist, and Tyson Foods.