Pilgrims Pride 2007

Case Study #2

Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation - 2007

Submitted by:

Complido, Mary Ann T.

Mg11a TTH 3:00 – 4:30pm

Summary

Pilgrim’s Pride began on October 2, 1946, when Aubrey Pilgrim and his partner, Pat Johns, purchased a feed and seed store for $3,500 from W. W. Weems in Pittsburg, Texas. Soon after forming the partnership, Aubrey asked his brother, Lonnie "Bo" Pilgrim, to join them. Bo’s first job there was driving a feed store truck for 50 cents an hour.

In the early days, the Pilgrims would sell 100 baby chicks and a sack of feed to local farmers who would take the chick’s home and raise them in their back yards, keeping some for family needs and bringing back the remainder when they were grown.

"They would sell the chickens back to us, and we would turn them loose in a pen near the store. Pilgrim brothers faced a number of tremendous challenges in building their new business.

"There was nothing remotely close to a long-range plan, a strategic plan, or a business plan associated with Farmer’s Feed and Seed," Bo recalled in his book. "I doubt if there was even very much time for daydreaming about a future. We were working long hours, sometimes hauling a load of peas over to the Cass County Canning Co. in Atlanta, Texas, not getting home until three o’clock in the morning, then getting to the store to open it at seven o’clock. The fact is, it was all about survival. Survival meant meeting a customer’s expectations so the customer would become a return customer." He soon learned not only to survive, but also how make a business grow.

The years ahead, the company continued to grow and thrive, purchasing Market Produce of Fort Worth in 1969 and undergoing two name changes: Pilgrim’s Corporation and Pilgrim Industries, Inc. Several other acquisitions followed, Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation became a publicly owned company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. One year later, the company expanded into Mexico.

Mission

“Our...