Timeline: Foster Farms history includes growth, innovation and a pardoned turkey
Foster Farms has become the top-selling poultry brand in the West over its 83 years. Some highlights:
1939: Company founded by Max and Verda Foster while he was still city editor for The Modesto Bee.
1950: First feed mill acquired.
1959: Livingston chicken plant acquired.
1966: New Livingston plant opens.
1970s: Cut-up chicken, lunch meat and other diverse products emerge to go with whole-bird sales.
1982: Turkey production added with purchase of the Grange Co. in Turlock.
1987: Oregon chicken plants purchased.
1989: First Fresno plant acquired.
1993: “Foster Imposters” advertising campaign debuts.
1996: Alabama plant purchased.
1997: Washington production added.
1999: Butterball turkey plant in Turlock acquired. Porterville plant opens.
2001: Zacky Farms chicken operations, based in Southern California, purchased.
2009: Louisiana plant acquired.
2010: Foster Farms provides turkey to be “pardoned” by President Barack Obama before Thanksgiving.
2013: Salmonella outbreak sickens several hundred people and leads to major overhauls of ranch and plant safeguards.
2015: Organic chicken launched.
2019: Free-range chicken added.
May 2022: Congressional report criticizes handling of COVID-19 in employees at Foster Farms and other meat-packers.
June 2022: Foster Farms sold to Atlas Holdings of Greenwich, Connecticut.
This story was originally published June 8, 2022 at 7:47 AM.
