James Hudson, 81, Meat Packer
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James “Red” Hudson, who founded Hudson Foods and sold it to rivals after an E. coli outbreak forced the meat and poultry company to recall 25 million pounds of beef in 1997, died Sunday in Rogers, Ala. He was 81.
Hudson founded Hudson Foods in 1972 after buying a feed division being sold by Ralston Purina Co., where Hudson worked as vice president of its West Central division. He had joined Ralston Purina years earlier as a feed store clerk.
By 1997, Hudson Foods was the third-largest publicly held processor in the United States, with more than $2 billion in sales, 12,500 employees and 19 processing plants in 11 states. In August 1997, E. coli contamination traced to a Hudson hamburger plant in Nebraska triggered multi-million dollar losses and led to the company’s breakup.
Burger King was buying more than a million pounds of Hudson beef a day before Hudson issued a 25-million-pound recall.
On Sept. 4, 1997, the company announced it would sell its poultry operations to its rival, Springdale-based Tyson Foods Inc. Hudson sold its beef operations to IBP Inc., which Tyson eventually acquired in 2001.
Don Tyson, chairman emeritus of Tyson Foods, called Hudson an industry leader.
“‘Red’ was a true poultry pioneer and our acquisition of Hudson Foods in 1998 made us a bigger, stronger company,” Tyson said.
Hudson was inducted into the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame in 2005.
