History
Establishing our legacy
Friona Industries began as a single, small cattle feedyard outside Friona, Texas, in 1962 as the beef industry began recognizing the resources in the Texas Panhandle. The founding partners were a group of cattle feeders who could see beyond the livestock to all the other businesses that cattle feeding supported: meat processing, feed manufacturing, agriculture financing, animal health and trucking.
Panhandle expansion
The second feedlot added to what would become Friona Industries was Swisher County Cattle Company in 1974. For the next decade, Friona Feedyard and Swisher County would join forces and operate together. Then in 1984, the family purchased the original feedlots and combined them with Randall County Feedyard and Littlefield Feedyard to create today’s company. That same year the privately owned Friona Industries moved its headquarters to Amarillo, further establishing our Texas Panhandle roots.
Continued growth
Growth and a visionary focus drove the 2010s. In 2016, Friona Industries acquired what would become Bovina Cattle Company and Dalhart Cattle Feeders from Cargill. Two years later, Friona Industries would expand outside of the Texas Panhandle to Haskell County, Kansas, by purchasing two feedyards, previously a part of Cattle Empire, LLC.
Visionary leaders
We have progressed to become one of the leading cattle-feeding businesses in the world, led by visionaries such as A.L. Black and James Herring, both winners of the National Golden Spur Award, which honors outstanding achievements in ranching and livestock businesses.
Industry leader
Today, privately held Friona Industries has eight state-of-the-art feedyards in the Texas Panhandle and southwest Kansas, with a feeding capacity that ranks us as the second-largest cattle feeder in the U.S. We continue to focus on a sustainable, vertically aligned production system that creates consistent, safe, tender and flavorful beef for branded product lines marketed in 2,300 retails stores in the U.S.