Chicken Producers in Price Pinch; Costs up 65% in Just Two Years.

Until last year, Gold Kist was an important Georgia business headquartered in Atlanta. It had operations in Florida, Alabama, North and South Carolina, and in Georgia, including a hatchery, feed mill, and large processing plant in Douglas.

Last year after prolonged resistance from Gold Kist, the board members of both companies voted unanimously to combine the two companies, in what was actually an acquisition of Gold Kist by Pilgrim's Pride. Prior to the acquisition, Gold Kist was the third largest chicken company in the country.

The facilities here in Douglas continue to operate much as before the acquisition.

From The Wall Street Journal:

It has been a tough year in the poultry business, with supply outpacing demand and feed-grain prices going through the roof.

Rising feed-grain prices, accelerated by the diversion of corn to make ethanol, have pushed up the cost of producing a live chicken by as much as 65% over the past two years, according to Clint Rivers, CEO of Pilgrim's Pride Corp., the No. 1 U.S. chicken producer by volume.