Gold Kist

Gold Kist was a large chicken producing company in the United States south. It was founded in 1933 by D.W. Brooks, a University of Georgia agronomy instructor as the Cotton Producers Association, a cooperative to help farmers in Carrollton, Georgia, market cotton. It soon grew and diversified into fields such as fertilizer and retailing farm supplies. It soon entered the poultry business. In 1998 it exited the agronomy business to focus on protein products, primarily chicken but also pork. In 2004, with the approval of its membership, it converted from being a cooperative to a for-profit stock-ownership company, listed on NASDAQ. In 2006, Gold Kist was acquired by Pilgrim's Pride.