“A federal grand jury in Denver, Colorado, returned an indictment charging Norman W. Fries Inc., dba Claxton Poultry Farms (Claxton), headquartered in Claxton, Georgia, with participating in a nationwide conspiracy to fix prices and rig bids for broiler chicken products. According to court documents, from at least as early as 2012 until at least 2019, Claxton and co-conspirators, including current President Mikell Fries and current Vice President Scott Brady, conspired to suppress and eliminate competition for sales of broiler chicken products, which are raised for human consumption and sold to grocers and restaurants. Fries and Brady are among 10 individuals charged in a superseding indictment in October 2020 for their roles in the conspiracy. Pilgrim’s Pride, a major broiler chicken producer based in Greeley, Colorado, pleaded guilty and was sentenced in February 2021 to pay a criminal fine over $107 million for its role in the conspiracy” – DOJ press release.
A search of OpenSecrets.org for “Mikell Fries” returns – shocker – a bunch of donations to Trump and Former Georgia Senator David Perdue. Perdue, who was unaffectionately nicknamed “Chickenshit” here on National Zero, is not actually related to the namesake family of the Perdue Chicken corporation. Perdue Chicken’s social media team were pretty emphatic about that non-relation back in October 2020, when dozens of Twitter users threatened a boycott of their products after Chickenshit mocked Kamala Harris’s name at a rally.