In a sheltered bit of the Chesapeake Bay in front of Jim Perdue’s home in Berlin, Maryland, the scion of America’s most famous chicken family raises clams. Each year he sells about a thousand to local crab shacks. The rest are eaten by the Perdue clan. The clam farm is the last remainder of his dream of striking out on his own and farming seafood, which inspired him, in 1974 at 25, to walk away from his family’s successful poultry business.

“You don't know if you're getting a pat on the back because you did a good job, or because your name is on the door,” says the 77-year-old Perdue, from a barn on the property. The structure is adorned with memorabilia from the company’s history, including the famous ads featuring his father, Frank, with his signature slogan: “It takes a tough man to sell a tender chicken.”

Frank was the legendary poultry magnate who grew his own father’s hatchery (founded in 1920) into a $1 billion (sales) business by the time he turned over the reins to Jim in 1991. Jim had come back to the family coup a few years earlier—and only after Frank threatened to sell the company unless he returned.

“My dad didn't trust a lot of people,” Perdue says, “but he trusted me.”

Frank, who died in 2005 at 84, still looms large at Perdue Farms. But in the 35 years since Jim first became chairman and CEO, it’s the third generation who has supercharged the family business into America’s fourth-largest chicken producer with $9.2 billion in 2025 revenue. Under his control, Perdue Farms has also become the country’s largest organic soybean oil producer (over 500 million pounds annually) and one of the biggest grain traders overall (over $2 billion of grain each year). He has also avoided the third-generation curse—it’s estimated that only 10% of family-owned businesses or less make it to the fourth—and grown the company nearly 10 times over.

“The idea is to add value and to upgrade,” says Perdue. “It's not like we need to go out and buy more chickens right now.” Building on the strategy begun by his father—using vertical integration to focus on premium products—Perdue Farms is now America’s largest organic chicken producer (more than a 30% market share) and largest organic grain purchaser (roughly 20 billion pounds of grain). Aside from poultry, thanks to its ownership of Niman Ranch and Coleman, Perdue is among the........

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