In 1928, a Russian immigrant named Samuel Zacky opened a small poultry market on a busy corner in downtown Los Angeles. The business was simple: Zacky purchased chickens from farms in nearby Van Nuys, customers picked a live bird from the coop, and a clerk killed and dressed it on the premises.
As his sons graduated high school, they joined the family business. And there they have remained, taking the company to places their father never could have imagined.
In the late 1950s, the company processed 6,000 chickens a week. Today, the number is 1.3 million, and Zacky Farms which remains 90 percent family-owned generates revenues of $350 million a year.
Old man Zacky initially resisted the changes that led to the phenomenal growth, said son Robert Zacky, 66, who runs Zacky Farms with his 70-year-old brother, Al, from the firm’s headquarters in El Monte.
It was Robert and Al who in the 1950s urged their father to broaden the market’s retail trade and sell chickens at the wholesale level. “He had been in retail all his life,” Robert Zacky recalls. “He did not want to be in the wholesale business.”
Robert went against his father’s wishes and began hustling some wholesale business. He still remembers his first sale an order from a grocer in Huntington Park for 36 hens, which Robert slaughtered, dressed and delivered himself.
As the wholesale business gathered steam, Dad eventually came around. “Once he saw things happening, he was smart enough to change his mind,” Robert says.
In 1956, the company opened its first processing plant. Samuel Zacky remained active in the company until his death in 1964. Since then, Zacky has added a range of new businesses hatcheries, hen-growing ranches, feed mills, and a turkey company.
To hear Robert tell it, keeping the business in the family has made expansion easier. He and his brother are able to act quickly, without having to clear decisions through a board of outside owners or investors.
“Other companies have gone public and it becomes much more difficult,” he said.
Zacky Farms remains a distinctly family affair. Robert and Al Zacky each control 45 percent of the company, with the remaining 10 percent split between a pair of longtime executives, who are not members of the family. Robert has two sons: Scott, 33, who oversees the firm’s cooked products division; and Greg, 37, who is in charge of special projects. Al’s son Richard oversees the company’s feed mill operations in Fresno. And Robert’s wife, Lillian, is the company’s public face, helping Zacky Farms retain a folksy image despite its considerable size.
Will Zacky Farms be passed down to the next generation? It’s not a sure thing, Robert Zacky said. While his and Al’s sons have shown an interest in taking over, they still need “to prove themselves,” Robert said.
Larry Kanter
