FRED ADAMS, JR.

Fred Adams is a native of Mississippi. He was born and grew up in Macon, Mississippi, and graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1954. Fred’s first job out of the University was with the Ralston Purina Company where he worked in feed sales in Louisiana and Mississippi for three years. In 1957, Fred started his own poultry and egg business in Jackson, Mississippi. In 1969, he merged his business with an egg company in California and an egg company in Maine. That was the beginning of Cal-Maine Foods, Inc.

Fred’s involvement in North Carolina began in 1989 with Cal-Maine’s purchase of the egg operations of Sunny Fresh Foods, Inc. in Albemarle and Louisburg, North Carolina. The company further expanded its North Carolina operations with the purchase of Sunnyside Eggs, Inc. at Greenville, North Carolina, in 1990. `

In 1996, Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. became a public company with an initial public offering of its stock. The Company is now the largest company involved with the production and marketing of fresh shell eggs in the United States, with operations in Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.  Cal-Maine has approximately 13 percent market share in the United States.  Its customers are national and regional retail chain stores and institutional distributors.

                  Fred serves as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Cal-Maine Foods.  He has served as the Chief Executive Officer and director of Cal-Maine since its formation in 1969 and as the Chairman of its Board of Directors since 1982.  he is a director and past chairman of the National Egg Company, the United Egg Producers, the Mississippi Poultry Association, U.S. Egg Marketers, Inc., and Egg Clearinghouse, Inc.

                  Fred Adams, Jr. is and individual who has truly had major impacts over the past half century on how table eggs are produced and marketed in the United states, and because of his outstanding contributions to the north Carolina and the USA poultry industries, it is with great pleasure that the Officers and Directors of the North Carolina poultry Federation induct Fred Adams Jr. Into the Nott Carolina Poultry Hall of Fame.