Joseph Grendys
$4.9B
Born
Dec 01, 1961
Age
64
Source of Wealth
Poultry processing
Residence
Chicago, Illinois
Citizenship
United States
Marital Status
Single
Children
0
Education
Bachelor of Arts/Science, Loyola University Chicago
- Joseph Grendys runs Koch Foods, a poultry processor that slaughters, ships and sells chicken under its own brands and through private label products.
- The $5 billion (estimated revenues) business makes buffalo wings and chicken strips for Walmart and nuggets for Burger King.
- Grendys joined Koch in the mid-1980s after graduating from Loyola University, lured by a 50% equity offer from original owner Fred Koch.
- At the time it was just a one-room shop with 13 employees, and its main business was taking bones out of chicken and cutting up the meat.
- Grendys bought out his former boss in 1992 and vertically integrated the company by gobbling up smaller feed mills and slaughterhouses.
- Grendys still lives in the modest Chicago split-level home where he grew up.
- Its Morton, Mississippi, plant was one of five poultry processors targeted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in August 2019.
- In 2019, ICE arrested 234 Koch Foods workers, who the company said had passed the government's E-Verify program, for potentially working without legal documentation.
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