Perfecting Poultry Products Propels Simmons Foods

Simmons Foods Inc., which will mark its 50th anniversary in 1999, is, in 1998, Northwest Arkansas’ largest privately owned company.

As the nation’s 16th-largest poultry producer, Simmons Foods did an estimated $420 million in sales in 1997, up from $380 million the previous year.

Simmons employs 4,300 workers in three states — Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma — and exports its poultry products to Russia, China and the Pacific Rim. The company has also successfully penetrated the South American market with its pet food line. International sales account for 15 percent of the company’s production, Simmons officials say.

Although Simmons’ headquarters are now in Siloam Springs, the company was founded in Decatur as Pluss Poultry. But the company grew quickly. Within a couple of years, its founders, M.H. “Bill” Simmons and Frank Pluss, began construction of a new processing plant in nearby Siloam Springs. When that plant opened in June 1952, all company functions moved to Siloam Springs.

By the mid-1950s, Simmons was able to buy out his partner. At that time, he also modified the company’s name, dropping a letter to create Plus Poultry. He didn’t put his own name on the company until nearly 20 years later when it became Simmons Industries. A generation later, in the early 1990s, the name was modified again, this time to the current Simmons Foods.

By all accounts, Bill Simmons was an innovator. His company was among the first to successfully ship frozen tray chicken to California, no small feat in the days when poultry shippers found it difficult to maintain high-quality in shipments to the West Coast.

Simmons also helped pioneer the idea of using all parts of the chicken by turning by-products — chicken backs and necks, for example — into canned pet food. Although the company doesn’t reveal production numbers, its pet food division is apparently thriving: It doubled its production capacity in 1996.

Simmons’ signature pet-food label is Bolo although it also uses the name Vigo in Oklahoma. In addition, the company makes pet foods under several private labels, including the now-famous Wal-Mart Ol’ Roy brand, which has been rolling off the Simmons production line since 1980.

Another long-time Simmons customer is Purina International.

Mark Simmons, who joined his father’s business in 1968, was named president in 1974 and has overseen the company’s growth since, both through internal expansion and through acquisitions.

Notable acquisitions have included the 1982 purchase of O’Brien Foods, which added processing plants in Southwest City, Mo., and Jay, Okla., a feed mill in Anderson, Mo., and a hatchery in Jane, Mo. The purchase nearly doubled the company’s size.

A further-processing plant in Van Buren was also purchased, a move that made Simmons a major supplier of further-processed poultry items to mid-scale restaurants across the country. That acquisition was followed by the purchase of a McAlester, Okla., further-processing plant.

In 1996, Simmons bought the live production operation of Herider Farms, a division of Campbell Soup Co.

During the 1990s, Simmons has also seen marked growth through construction projects. It built a $7 million automated feed mill in Fairland, Okla., and in 1995 embarked on a $30 million capital improvements project, which included improvements to the first Siloam Springs and Southwest City plants, an addition to the Siloam Springs hatchery and new corporate offices in Siloam Springs.

Also, as a result of that campaign, the company’s Jane, Mo., hatchery became the largest in the world. That plant can now set 2.8 million eggs per week.

Projects currently under way include an addition to the water-treatment facility at Southwest, Mo., and a new further-processing plant at Van Buren. The 62,000-SF, $15 million Van Buren plant, which is expected to open this fall, will create about 80 new jobs. Future expansions could increase that to 250 jobs, the company says.