Arthur W. Perdue (1885–1977) was an American businessman and the founder of
Perdue Farms[3] along with his wife Pearl in 1920.[4] The business was started in his backyard, and at the time only produced table eggs from chickens,[4] but eventually grew into a $4.1 billion company.[5]
Perdue was born in 1885 as the second of three children to Levin and Martha Perdue in Worcester County.[1] His parents were devout and strict
Methodists.[1]
He married Pearl Parsons in 1917 and had one child in 1920,
Frank Perdue.[1]
Career
In 1915, Arthur Perdue worked as a
Railway Express agent[7] in
Salisbury, Maryland.[8] By 1920, Perdue noticed that the chicken farmers on the
Delmarva peninsula that were making money had shifted from selling chickens to selling table eggs.[9] Perdue quit his job at the railroad and established his own commercial table-egg farm a few miles east of
Salisbury, Maryland.[9]
Perdue began focusing on quality and brought in
Leghorn breeding stock from Texas to improve the quality of his flock.[7] He then expanded his egg market, including to
New York.[7]