A Railway Express agent, a small flock and a son who took over the business.

Perdue is an American chicken brand made by Perdue Farms, a company based in Salisbury, Maryland, on the Delmarva Peninsula. English Wikipedia describes Perdue Farms as the parent of two businesses: Perdue Foods, which processes chicken, turkey and pork, and Perdue AgriBusiness, a grain operation. The brand on the packs carries the family’s surname, and for decades the face in its advertising belonged to the family as well.

The business began with eggs. English Wikipedia dates the company’s founding to 1920, by Arthur Perdue with his wife, Pearl Perdue, who had been keeping a small flock of chickens. CNN/Money reported in April 2005 that Arthur W. Perdue gave up his job as a Railway Express agent and, with his wife’s help, raised a flock of Leghorn chickens, and that the family sold enough eggs to stay out of debt and prosper, even through the Depression. The same report described the operation as a family backyard egg business.

The family soon moved into chicks. English Wikipedia says the company started out selling table eggs and that in 1925 Arthur Perdue built a hatchery and switched to selling layer chicks to farmers. His son, Frank Perdue, was the couple’s only child, according to CNN/Money. Frank attended Salisbury State College for two years and then returned to the family farm; Wikipedia says he joined the company in 1939.

After the war the firm grew into a chicken company. English Wikipedia says it was incorporated as A.W. Perdue & Son and that Frank assumed leadership in the 1950s; CNN/Money dates his appointment as president of Perdue Farms Inc. to 1952. Wikipedia says the company began contracting with local farmers to raise its birds, opened a second hatchery in North Carolina, and built grain receiving and storage facilities and a soybean processing plant in Maryland.

The last link in the chain came in the late 1960s. English Wikipedia says that in 1968 the company began operating a poultry processing plant of its own in Salisbury, giving Perdue Farms control of each step from egg and feed to market and letting it sell a branded product rather than a commodity. CNN/Money reported that Frank Perdue bought radio advertising in 1968 to bring a name to what had been an anonymous fresh poultry trade, making his own name a byword for chicken.

Three generations, a family holding company and a move into pork and beef.

Ownership has stayed with the family. English Wikipedia says the corporate structure changed in 2010, when a holding company owned by the Perdue family, FPP Family Investments, Inc., became the controlling entity for Perdue Farms. The holding company also owns Perdue AgriBusiness, a shared business services company and Coleman Natural Foods. Family Business Magazine described Perdue as a family-owned poultry producer in September 2015.

The leadership passed down the generations. English Wikipedia says Frank’s son, Jim Perdue, was named chairman in 1991, the third generation of the family to lead the company. Frank Perdue died in 2005; CNN/Money reported on 1 April 2005 that at the time of his death he was chairman of the executive committee of the board of Perdue Farms Inc., citing a company statement.

The company widened its range of meats through acquisitions. Family Business Magazine, summarising a New York Times report of 8 September 2015, said Perdue’s acquisition of Coleman Natural Foods in 2011 marked its entry into the pork and beef business. The same report said Perdue had acquired Niman Ranch, a specialty meats business that the private equity firm LNK Partners had operated under the name Natural Food Holdings since 2011. The deal also brought the Prairie Grove Farms brand and the Sioux-Preme processing plants in Sioux City and Sioux Center, Iowa. English Wikipedia lists further subsidiaries, among them Heritage Breeders, which develops the breed Perdue uses.

The chicken range has its own sub-brands. English Wikipedia says that in 2007 Perdue launched Harvestland, a brand built around products raised without antibiotics, and that later labels of that kind also appeared on its Simply Smart and Perfect Portions lines.

Day-to-day management moved outside the family in 2017. English Wikipedia says that in March 2017 Jim Perdue announced that Randy Day would be promoted from chief operating officer to chief executive, with Jim Perdue remaining chairman of the board. Day retired as chief executive in July 2023 and was succeeded by the company’s chief operating officer, Kevin McAdams, according to the same article. The company remains in Salisbury, where the family business started.

Design and documentation.

The brands in this group are all meat and poultry names, sold from the chiller cabinet, the deli counter and the freezer. Meat and poultry brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from family packing houses that still carry a founder’s name or a home town to labels that now belong to much larger food groups, and a single name can appear on bacon, ham, sausages, sliced deli meat and frozen dinners alike.

A meat brand’s identity is usually carried less by one package than by a name, a colour and a promise printed on a label, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its production or grown far beyond the place where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its products are actually processed and packed.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, its products and how its labels and advertising have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A founder’s son as spokesman, a New York agency, and a 2018 barnyard redesign.

For years the brand’s advertising starred the man who ran the company. CNN/Money reported in April 2005 that in 1971, after months of reading and research, Frank Perdue chose the New York advertising firm Scali, McCabe, Sloves to help him fill the New York area with radio, television, newspaper and subway advertising in which he gave customers quality assurances in person. He became well known as the company’s spokesman, the report said, appearing in radio and print advertising and in a long run of television commercials.

The lines were plain and personal. Among the ones CNN/Money recalled was “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.” In another advertisement he told viewers that if they were not completely satisfied with his chicken, they could write to him, the president of Perdue, and get their money back, and he asked who a shopper could write to about government-approved chicken: the President of the United States? The report quoted Business Week describing the response after the first round of advertisements, when New Yorkers wrote and called to ask where to buy his chickens and to receive a free company cookbook.

The packaging took a new direction in 2018. Food Dive reported on 19 September 2018 that Perdue Farms was introducing new packaging with a blue cartoon chicken named Pearl, who would not talk or be animated. The design showed Pearl near a white and blue barn, with a farm field and a fence, set out in large type that the chicken was raised with no antibiotics and added the words “freshness guaranteed”. The tagline “Fresh From Family Farms Since 1920” was removed. Company officials said the bright, simple lines and colours were meant to appeal to younger shoppers as well as loyal customers, and Perdue described the change as a major packaging update in the brand’s history.

The design work was credited to an agency. Dieline reported on 9 October 2018 that Perdue had tasked Enlisted Design with helping its packaging stand out. The aim, according to the article, was to reflect the company’s animal care efforts and all-natural products while keeping the trust of existing customers and appealing to younger generations, with a modern look distinct from competitors. Dieline tagged the project with the colours blue, brown, green and white.

For a design guide, Perdue shows how a family name can carry a brand twice: first through a founder’s son speaking for his own product on television, then through a quiet illustrated farm scene that keeps the same surname at the centre of the pack. Compare it with Tyson, another family name on American chicken, and Butterball, a poultry brand from the same aisle. For this guide we use Pearl blue, field green, barn white and fence brown with a slab serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Perdue’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.