Ralston Purina Company was a St. Louis, Missouri,–based American conglomerate with substantial holdings in animal feed, food, pet food, consumer products, and entertainment. On December 12, 2001, it merged with Swiss food-giant Nestlé's Friskies division to form Nestlé Purina PetCare Company.
Cargill, Incorporated, is a privately held American global food corporation based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and incorporated in Wilmington, Delaware. Founded in 1865, it is the largest privately held corporation in the United States in terms of revenue. In 2015, if it were a public company, it would have ranked number 15 on the Fortune 500, behind McKesson and ahead of AT&T. Cargill has frequently been the subject of criticism related to the environment, human rights, finance, and other ethical considerations.
Gold Kist was a large chicken producing company in the southern United States. It was founded in 1933 by D.W. Brooks, a University of Georgia agronomy instructor as the Cotton Producers Association, a cooperative to help farmers in Carrollton, Georgia, market cotton. It soon grew and diversified into fields such as fertilizer and retailing farm supplies. It soon entered the poultry business. In 1998 it exited the agronomy business to focus on protein products, primarily chicken but also pork. In 2004, with the approval of its membership, it converted from being a cooperative to a for-profit stock-ownership company, listed on NASDAQ. In 2006, Gold Kist was acquired by Pilgrim's Pride.
Seaboard Corporation is a diverse multinational agribusiness and transportation conglomerate with integrated operations in several industries. In the United States, the company mainly engages in pork production and processing and ocean transportation. Internationally, Seaboard is primarily engaged in commodity merchandising, grain processing, sugar production and electrical power generation. The parent company, Seaboard Corporation is based in the Kansas City suburb of Merriam, Kansas. Its subsidiaries include Seaboard Foods, Seaboard Marine, Seaboard Overseas & Trading Group (SOTG), Tabacal Agroindustria, Transcontinental Capital Corporation, Ltd. (TCCB), and Mount Dora Farms. It has 50% non-controlling interest in Butterball, LLC. Its principal operating divisions are pork, commodity trading and milling, marine, sugar, and power. More than 50% of the corporation is owned by members of its founding family, the Breskys.
Riceland Foods, Inc. is a U.S.-based, farmer-owned agricultural marketing cooperative. Founded in 1921, it is a major miller and marketer of rice. Riceland’s headquarters are in Stuttgart, Arkansas, and it owns and operates six rice mills, including the world’s largest in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Its principal business is receiving, storing, milling, packaging, and marketing rice, grain, and byproducts.
Dale Wilmore McMillen was a leading proponent of the use of feed supplements in animal husbandry. He founded Wayne Feeds and Central Soya.
ContiGroup Companies, Inc (CGC) was founded by Simon Fribourg in Arlon, Belgium, in 1813 as a grain-trading firm. Formerly known as Continental Grain, ContiGroup has expanded into a multinational corporation with offices and facilities in 10 countries while employing more than 13,500 people worldwide. Today, CGC is one of the largest privately held corporations in the United States.
Perdue Farms is the parent company of Perdue Foods and Perdue AgriBusiness, based in Salisbury, Maryland. Perdue Foods is a major chicken, turkey, and pork processing company in the United States. Perdue AgriBusiness ranks among the top United States grain companies. Perdue Farms has 2021 annual sales of $8 billion.
Foster Farms is an American poultry company. The company has been privately owned since 1939. It was operated by the Foster family since 1939 until recently, now operated and owned by Atlas Holdings, after their purchase of the company in 2022. The company is based in Livingston, California, with operations throughout the West Coast and a few on the East Coast. The company specializes in a variety of chicken and turkey products advertised as fresh and naturally locally grown.
OSI Group is an American privately owned holding company of meat processors that service the retail and food service industries with international headquarters in Aurora, Illinois. It operates over 65 facilities in 17 countries. Sheldon Lavin was the owner, CEO and chairman until his death in May, 2023.
Delacon Biotech Nik Ges.m.b.H. is a multinational feed additive company headquartered in Engerwitzdorf, near Linz, Austria. The company develops and manufactures phytogenic feed additives for poultry, swine, ruminants and aqua since the 1980s. Delacon conducts in-house research and collaborates with independent institutes and universities.
San Miguel Food and Beverage, Inc. is a Philippine food and beverage company headquartered in Pasig, Metro Manila. It is the largest food and beverage company in the Philippines, with nearly 3,000 employees deployed in a nationwide network of offices, farms, manufacturing, processing and distribution facilities. The company is a subsidiary of San Miguel Corporation (SMC).
The broiler industry is the process by which broiler chickens are reared and prepared for meat consumption. Worldwide, in 2005 production was 71,851,000 tonnes. From 1985 to 2005, the broiler industry grew by 158%.
Sanderson Farms is an American poultry producer which is based in Laurel, Mississippi. It is the third largest poultry producer in the United States and produces 13.65 million chickens per week.
Koch Foods is a food processor and distributor in Park Ridge, Illinois that as of December 2019 is listed by Forbes magazine as number 125 on the list of the largest private companies in the US. As of October 2014, the company had a revenue of $3 billion, and approximately 14,000 employees. The company is owned by Joseph Grendys.
Mountaire Farms is the fourth-largest producer of chicken in the United States, with headquarters in Millsboro, Delaware. The company operates internationally, serving the United States and foreign markets as far away as Asia. Mountaire Farms has facilities in the states of Arkansas, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia. The company has about 7,000 employees and plays a major part in the economy of Delaware.
Ceylon Grain Elevators PLC is an animal feed manufacturing company in Sri Lanka. The company was incorporated in 1982 as a result of an agreement between the Government of Sri Lanka and Prima Limited of Singapore. The company was listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange in 1984. Singapore-based, Prima Limited holds a controlling stake in the company's stocks. Ceylon Grain Elevators is part of the Prima Group in Sri Lanka. The company is ranked 50th in LMD 100, an annual list of listed companies in Sri Lanka by revenue.
Bairaha Farms PLC is a poultry processing company in Sri Lanka. The company was founded in 1975 and went public with an initial public offering in 1994. By 1987, Bairaha Farms became the largest broiler producer in Sri Lanka. During the late 1990s, Bairaha was one of the three dominant animal feed manufacturers. A Bairaha Farms' joint venture won a bronze award at the National Chamber of Exporters Awards in 2011. Bairaha Farms is one of the LMD 100 companies in Sri Lanka and one of the 100 most valuable brands in the country in 2022. The company conducts several corporate social responsibility programmes.
US$1.5 billion (FY 2004)