GoodMark Foods

Goodmark Foods, Inc. is an American food manufacturing company, based in Raleigh, North Carolina.[1][2] It produces "meat snacks, packaged meats, and extruded grain snacks,"[2] especially Slim Jim jerky meat snacks.[3] It is owned by ConAgra.[2]

Company history

Slim Jim snacks originated in Philadelphia.[4] Its manufacturer Cherry-Levis Food Company was sold to General Mills in 1967 for about $20 million[4] and renamed Slim Jim, Inc.[5] In 1970, General Mills purchased Jesse Jones Sausage Co. in Garner, North Carolina, and formed GoodMark Foods, Inc. to make Slim Jims there.[5] Ron Doggett, a General Mills finance executive involved in the purchase of Cherry-Levis, had moved to North Carolina to participate in managing the operations. "In June 1982, he directed a unique leveraged buyout with three other executives of GoodMark from General Mills, who had put the subsidiary up for sale."[3] They took the company public in 1985.[6] The company's stock was traded on NASDAQ as GDMK.[1]

It was acquired by ConAgra, Inc. in 1998[2] for $225 million.[6] GoodMark's annual sales were about $170 million at that time.[1] Doggett retired as chairman, president and CEO in 1999, a year later.[3][5]

Products and brands

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 "GoodMark Foods and ConAgra Have Definitive Agreement for GoodMark to Merge With ConAgra". PRNewswire.com (Press release). ConAgra, Inc. June 18, 1998. Retrieved December 1, 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Company Overview of GoodMark Foods, Inc.". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved December 1, 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 "Laureate: Ron E. Doggett (December 2, 1934 - ): Inducted 2004". HistoryNC.org. North Carolina Business Hall of Fame (Junior Achievement of the Carolinas, Inc.). Retrieved December 1, 2016.
  4. 1 2 "Adolph Levis, creator of Slim Jim snacks, dead at 89". The Tuscaloosa News. Associated Press. March 21, 2001. Retrieved December 1, 2016.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 "GoodMark Foods, Inc. History". FundingUniverse.com. Retrieved December 1, 2016.
  6. 1 2 "ConAgra Inc. buys GoodMark Foods Inc. for $225 million". Triangle Business Journal. American City Business Journals. February 15, 1999. Retrieved December 1, 2016.

External links


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