At Chicken Giant Perdue, Animal Welfare Helps the Bottom Line

  • Slower growing breeds to be in commercial production year-end
  • Perdue may change payment system to be more like Niman Ranch’s
Chickens

Photographer: Kevin Lee/Bloomberg

Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

When Niman Ranch, the boutique meat company known for its high-welfare pork, announced it was being acquired by chicken giant Perdue Farms Inc., which had snapped up Coleman Natural Foods in 2011, cries of “sell out” bounced across the Internet.

Three years later the sky hasn’t fallen. Instead, the floor has been lifted.