Waynesboro / Mississippi / United States
Marshall Durbin Companies is one of the largest privately owned poultry companies in the United States. By the late 1920s, Marshall Durbin Sr. had entered the real estate business. However, with the Great Depression, he decided that selling real estate would not allow him to make a living. In 1930, with $500 borrowed from a friend, he opened a retail fish stand in Birmingham, Ala. Durbin opened his first facility in 1935 that would centrally dress poultry and store and distribute seafood. By 1996, the company was producing nearly 110 million chickens a year. The products manufactured by the company include whole birds with giblets, whole birds without giblets, fast food cuts, parts and boneless poultry. Based in Birmingham, the Marshall Durbin Companies has facilities in Alabama and Waynesboro, Miss.
