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Sanderson Farms raises and processes chickens, selling fresh and frozen chicken products to grocery stores, restaurants, and food service companies.
Sanderson Farms is one of America's biggest chicken producers. It hatches eggs, raises chicks on company farms and contract farms, processes the birds at its own plants, and sells the meat under its own brand and private labels. The company focuses almost entirely on chicken鈥攏o beef, no pork鈥攁nd sells most of its products fresh rather than frozen.
The business works in a straightforward way: Sanderson buys feed (mostly corn and soy), raises the birds, and sells the meat to supermarkets, food distributors, and restaurants. It sells both branded and unbranded chicken, and a large chunk goes to food service customers who cook with it. The company is vertically integrated, meaning it controls the hatchery, feed mills, processing plants, and distribution, which helps keep costs down and quality consistent. Sanderson Farms competes with other big poultry producers like Tyson Foods and Pilgrim's Pride. Chicken is a commodity business, so margins depend heavily on feed costs and chicken prices, which swing with grain markets and demand. The company has historically been conservative, carrying little debt and paying a dividend.
In 2022, Sanderson Farms was acquired by Cargill and Continental Grain in a deal worth about $4.5 billion, taking the company private after decades as a public company. The brand remains a familiar sight in grocery stores across the South and beyond, and chicken remains the core of everything it does.
Saved answer 路 last researched 5 Nov 2026