Meat&Poultry - January 2013 - 23

Contending
FPL Food has seen undisputed success
behind the vision of its founder
BY JOEL CREWS
jcrews@sosland.com
S
ince 2004, FPL Food LLC has grown quickly, from
two plants in Augusta, Ga., employing 400 people,
to four facilities in Georgia and South Carolina, with
upwards of 800 employees and annual revenues topping
$350 million. The company was founded by François Paul
Léger as a harvesting plant and manufacturer of boxed
beef and ground-beef products. In many ways, though,
he started from the bottom, working his way up through
the ranks, an unlikely contender in an industry of ominous
heavyweights.
“I founded FPL and created a new company and a new
identity,” says the 51-year-old Léger. He already knew his
way around meat-processing plants when he started FPL,
thanks, in part, to spending 20 years working internationally
for Keystone Foods and his experience in the retail
fresh-beef industry in France, not to mention his rural
European upbringing. A current US citizen, Léger grew
up in France on the farm. “That’s how I came to the meat
industry,” he says. In a family of 10 children, Léger’s older
brothers were already running things on the family farm
by the time he was old enough to have decided that was
his interest as well. “So, I could not stay on the farm,” he
said, and went out on his own to make a living in the beef
business. One of his fi rst jobs was loading trucks with
shipments of beef.
“At that time, we were carrying the meat on our shoul-
ders,” he recalls. Eventually, he began working in the plant’s
boning room. After several years, he crossed paths with an
executive from Keystone Foods. He began working with
Keystone in the late 1980s and ultimately spent 20 years
working at the global company, at operations in France,
Australia, South America and in the US. During his time
in the US, Léger saw a golden opportunity to develop an
integrated-beef business in the southeastern part of the
country. In 2004, an established plant in Augusta became
available and Léger took the leap to leave Keystone and
act on what he felt was a sound business strategy.
“What attracted me to this area was based on my ex-
perience in Australia,” he says. “I saw a geographical
position that was advantageous. From where I am, I can
combine harvest capabilities with manufacturing capabilities
in the middle of a densely populated area. I found
that very attractive.”
And so was born FPL Food LLC. Each year since
2004, Léger and his growing team have made substantial
investments in property, technology and staff to become
the largest, privately owned, vertically integrated
beef company in the Southeast.
Investing in integration
Building a leadership team and staff proved to be a hurdle
in getting the business going. “That was one of the biggest
challenges I faced,” says Léger.
“When I took over in 2004, I was not able to hire peo-
ple,” he says – although he had taken over the assets of an
existing operation, including two plants, the equipment
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