Ozark Mountain Poultry, a smaller producer focused on chicken marketed as free of antibiotics, is being acquired by Springdale-based George's Inc., the 11th-largest poultry producer in the U.S.
Ozark Mountain Poultry said in a news release Wednesday that George's has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the chicken producer and expects the deal to close in the fourth quarter, or sometime in November, said a spokesman with Ozark Mountain Poultry.
"I think the acquisition of OMP will equally benefit George's and the team members of OMP because our cultures fit," Ed Fryar, founder of Ozark Mountain Poultry, said in a news release. "Additionally, it will enhance our position in the marketplace."
Terms of the deal were not disclosed in the release. A company spokesman said both privately-held companies were not providing further comment about the deal. George's Inc. did not respond by phone or email to a request for comment by Wednesday evening.
Fryar said in the release that he's known Gary George and his family for 35 years and that he is someone "for whom I have tremendous admiration and respect."
Founded in the 1920s, George's Inc. is one of the largest and oldest chicken companies in the state, predating Springdale's Tyson Foods, founded by John H. Tyson, the headquarters of which are just down the road from the white and emerald offices of George's.
"I think, for poultry companies in Northwest Arkansas, being in the shadow of Tyson has to be a challenging experience," said Alan Ellstrand, associate dean of the Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. "Anything they can do to expand their scale is beneficial to the company."
More than 5,300 employees work at George's, with poultry operations in Arkansas, Missouri and Virginia and prepared foods operations in Arkansas and Tennessee. Current production averages 22 million pounds of chicken per week. By comparison, more than 1,800 employees work at Ozark Mountain Poultry, where production averages 1.2 million chickens per week.
A couple of upsides to the deal are Ozark Mountain Poultry's chicken products themselves and that the expansion can be used to cut costs, Ellstrand said. Ozark Mountain Poultry's chickens are marketed as antibiotic-free and raised with feed that has not been genetically modified, Ellstrand said. It will be George's entry into the antibiotic-free retail sector.
"Increasing that economy of scale should be helpful to George's as they try to compete in a challenging market," he said.
Rogers-based Ozark Mountain Poultry began processing birds in the spring of 2001 in a 2,200-square-foot production room. Since then, the private company has added on to its Rogers plant, which primarily further processes the chickens, and snapped up production facilities throughout the state, including a former Pilgrim's Pride plant in Batesville in 2013. A company spokesman said most of its contract growers raise chickens in and around Independence County.
"The ability to provide today's consumer with affordable antibiotic-free and non-GMO poultry products is very important to our overall strategy," Carl George, co-chief executive of George's, said in a prepared remark.
Business on 09/06/2018