With chicken prices soaring, Sanderson Farms sold for $4.5B
Posted/updated on: August 11, 2021 at 10:03 am
EAST TEXAS (AP) – With the price of chicken soaring, the third-largest poultry producer in the U.S. is being bought for $4.53 billion. Cargill and privately held Continental Grain formed a joint venture to acquire Sanderson Farms. They will pay $203 per share in cash for a company that last year processed more than 4.8 billion pounds of meat. Restaurant chains have begun to offer their own variations of fried chicken sandwiches, further heightening demand for poultry.
The Mississippi based company website states employment of 17 thousand in seven states, processing as many as 13.6 million chickens each week. Eleven of their 33 plants are in Texas in Waco, Bryan, Palestine, Lindale, Mineola, Easterly, and Tyler. The company will go private once the sale is finalized around the first of the year.
Sales at Sanderson Farms soared more than 34% during the second quarter compared with the same three-month period last year.
