Pilgrim's Pride Sued By Farmer Over Chicken-Raising Practice

A contract farmer for Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. is blowing the whistle on what he says is the poultry company’s repeated violations of federal law covering the raising of birds.

Eric Hedrick, a West Virginia-based chicken producer, sued Pilgrim’s Pride, a unit of Brazil’s scandal-plagued JBS SA, alleging the company retaliated by sending him diseased chicks and moldy feed when he objected to some of its practices.

Pilgrim’s Pride “falsely represents’’ that contract farmers are “independent growers’’ while the company micromanages all aspects of the operation and punishes those who object to their heavy-handedness, Hedrick said in the Oct. 25 lawsuit filed in West Virginia.

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