THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 2, 1995 TAG: 9504010248
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ACCOMAC LENGTH: Long : 144 lines
Twelve years ago, Rod Flagg desperately needed a foreman for the eviscerating line at Perdue's chicken-processing plant in Salisbury, Md. The company came through, but not with Flagg's ideal candidate.
``Our conflicts resolution manager says, `Rod, we got an eviscerating foreman for you,' '' Flagg, now operations manager in Accomac, recalled last week. ``You don't know him, but his name's Jim Perdue.''
That was Jim Perdue, ``tough man'' Frank Perdue's son, third-generation heir to the top chicken-processing company on the East Coast.
Flagg discovered then what the rest of the country will soon know: If, as Frank Perdue has been telling consumers for more than 20 years, ``it takes a tough man to make a tender chicken,'' Perdue Farms may be in trouble.
Jim Perdue isn't tough. He's downright nice. He coaches his sons' soccer teams and even goes to Sunday school.
It's no surprise that the son of the man who owns an estimated 90 percent of the country's third-largest poultry processor has long since been promoted from the post of supervising chicken gutting. Jim Perdue, 45, has been CEO of Salisbury-based Perdue Farms for three years.
And that's no small task. Perdue Farms employs 18,600 people at 16 plants up and down the Eastern Seaboard and in Indiana. Each week, the $1.8 billion company processes 11 million chickens and 3.1 million pounds of turkey.
But as Jim learned to run the business, his 75-year-old father continued as the company's public face. The commercials starring Frank Perdue that began airing in 1971 raised the stakes on what it takes to run the company. At Perdue, the role of company spokesman has taken on a higher profile than the job of chief executive officer.
With a new set of TV commercials, Jim Perdue is now tackling the role of company star. Lowe & Partners SMS, the New York advertising agency whose commercials made Frank Perdue and his company a household name, is trying to figure out how to spotlight Jim Perdue.
``There's a sort of subtle difference between the two of them,'' says Kevin McKeon, the Lowe & Partners creative director and copywriter for the Perdue account. ``As you know, Frank was the tough man. That's pretty much it, that was Frank.
``Jim still is incredibly dedicated to putting the best product out there, and he has the same drive as his dad. But he's not as in-your-face as Frank was. He's got a really endearing style.''
Following Frank Perdue's act, on and off camera, will be tougher than the man himself.
Perdue revolutionized the poultry business and the corporate advertising world.
Twenty years ago, chicken was chicken. It didn't matter which company raised the chickens or processed them. Perdue's ads made chicken a brand name, leading others such as Tyson Foods, Shenandoah Valley-based WLR Foods and Holly Farms into the brand-name advertising field.
Perdue also became one of the first CEOs to make his face the company's face. Chrysler's Lee Iacocca and others soon followed, arguably with less success than Frank Perdue.
Iacocca didn't look like a car. But with his Ocean City, Md., tan, short hair and thin lips, Perdue looked like a chicken.
``I think that's one of the things about me - I don't look like a chicken,'' Jim Perdue says. ``I don't know if that's good or bad.''
Jim Perdue looks like a normal guy, with short brown hair, steely blue eyes and his father's thin lips that curl up on one side of his mouth when he makes a dry, funny comment.
``He's got a Dennis the Menace sort of charm,'' McKeon says. ``As in, `Oops, did I just happen to mention my competition's product is not as good as mine? I didn't notice that I did that.' ''
The personality differences between Jim Perdue and his famous father follow through to the contrasts in their management styles. Frank ran the business as his own, making most of the decisions himself.
Jim is more of a 1990s-style manager: He listens to the line workers, puts a lot of weight behind supervisors' suggestions, then makes a decision.
On a walk-through at Perdue's 1,700-employee processing plant in Accomac last week, Perdue and Flagg wanted to get a look at some ergonomic scissors the workers were testing for snipping apart chicken meat. The scissors, which cut with a light touch on a trigger on the handle, cost $1,600 a pair, $180 more for the blades. And a line worker hated them.
Amid the grinding noise of the plant, Perdue leaned over as the line worker griped animatedly about the scissors. He listened and nodded.
At the top of a card Perdue passes out each year about the corporate mission is the word ``people,'' and that's his signature on the company.
He seems to believe it when he says, ``Chicken is just what goes out the back door; we're in the people business here.''
The Perdue legacy stems from Arthur Perdue, Jim's grandfather, who founded Perdue Farms 75 years ago. Frank Perdue grew the business with an eye toward keeping it in the family.
For a time, Jim Perdue - the youngest of Frank's four children and his only son - spurned everyone's assumption that he would take over.
In 1973, Perdue got away from Salisbury and Perdue Farms. He got a bachelor's in biology from Wake Forest University, a master's in marine biology from the University of Massachusetts and a doctorate of fisheries at the University of Washington.
``I felt uncomfortable working in the business at that time because of who I was,'' Perdue says. ``As any father of a family-run business, I think my father would definitely have liked for me to stay, but what he also said was `You've got to like what you're doing.' ''
Ten years later he returned to the company, as eviscerating foreman.
Frank Perdue also believed passionately that he needed his son to take over the business. As it turns out, the tough man knew he couldn't order his son to rejoin the company. He had to exercise more subtle and patient tactics to recruit Jim.
``He's a good salesman, and he stayed in touch as any good salesman does through the years,'' Jim Perdue said, a wry smile bending across his mouth. ``And also, I was on the board of directors.''
Jim Perdue worked his way up through several supervisory positions, learning the business from the plant floor. The result: He's comfortable talking to workers about the details of their jobs, and he knows what drives the chicken business.
Perdue appears more at ease talking about plant operations or business expenses than about himself.
He knows the Eastern Shore used to be home to 200 poultry companies; through consolidation, only seven are left.
Perdue Farms' sales have grown at a 12 percent annual pace for the past five years, compared with an industry average of 4-5 percent, Perdue said. That growth will have to continue for the company to stay competitive.
``In this industry it's unusual to have privately held family companies,'' Perdue says of his return to the company, ``so I wanted to see if I could keep that going.''
To do that, Perdue will have to develop his own public image. Like his father, Perdue initially was cold to the idea of being a TV star.
``Frank resisted it at first,'' says Dick Auletta, whose New York company R.C. Auletta and Co. runs Perdue's public relations. ``I have to say, Jim wasn't too enthusiastic at first.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
BETH BERGMAN/Staff
Jim Perdue chats with worker Becky Watson while making the rounds
through the company's 1,700-employee chicken-processing plant in
Accomac last week.
Chicken moves along the assembly line before being packaged.
Photo
BETH BERGMAN/Staff
Jim Perdue, right, shares a laugh last week with workers at the
Perdue plant in Accomac.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY POULTRY INDUSTRY by CNB