Pilgrim’s Pride offers $50,000 reward for arrest of chicken killers

GREELEY – Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. (Nasdaq: PPC) is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest of vandals who killed 325,000 chickens in rural South Carolina.

Chicken growers who supply birds to Pilgrim’s Pride, based in Greeley, are facing $1.7 million in losses because of the killings, Clarendon County Sheriff Randy Garrett said. The farmers contract with Pilgrim’s Pride to grow chickens for the company’s prepared foods facility in Sumter, S.C.

Authorities have a “long list” of people they are looking at in connection with the killings, Garrett said.

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“It’s somebody who has a very big ax to grind with Pilgrim’s Pride,” he said.

Vandals bypassed alarm systems and adjusted temperatures in 16 chicken houses on six farms in Clarendon County, South Carolina, Garrett said. Younger birds need more heat while older birds need cooler temperatures.

People with knowledge of raising chickens killed the birds following Pilgrim’s Pride’s decision not to renew employment contracts of people who worked at its prepared foods facility and at the farms, Garrett said.

The family farmer is the backbone of rural America, its values and economy, said Pilgrim’s Pride CEO Bill Lovette in a statement from the company.

“The American family farmer makes safe, nutritious and affordable meals possible for millions of American families every day,” he said. “An attack against the family farm should not and cannot be tolerated and we hope this reward will help bring the perpetrators to swift justice.”

Pilgrim’s Pride said it will deliver new flocks of birds to the farmers as replacements for the chickens that died. The company employs 1,600 people in the area, and it partners with more than 90 chicken growers that it pays more than $24 million annually.

Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation employs about 35,500 people and operates chicken processing plants and prepared-foods facilities in 12 states, Puerto Rico and Mexico.

Company shares fell 3 percent to close at $26.43.

The Clarendon County Sheriff’s Office, South Carolina state police and U.S. Department of Agriculture are investigating.

Anyone with information about the incidents is asked to call the Clarendon County Sheriff’s Office at (803) 435-4414.