Founded in Illinois in 1985 with 13 employees, Koch Foods has grown to be the fifth-largest poultry producer in the U.S. with nearly 13,000 employees and operations in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee. The company produced 50.00 million pounds of ready-to-cook chicken on a weekly basis in 2018, maintaining its 2017 level of production.
Like other major poultry producers, Koch Foods made a series of investments to expand its operations in 2018. This includes completely renovating its hatchery in Henagar, Alabama , and adding a fourth processing line to its poultry processing plant in Gadsden, Alabama.
The year was not without setbacks for the company, however, which in August 2018 agreed to a $3.75 million settlement for a discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of 11 workers at a Koch plant in Morton, Mississippi.
