OMP Doing Chicken Its Way

Ozark Mountain Poultry of Rogers is not your typical chicken company.

Bonnie and Joe - as well as Isabella and Penelope - kind of give that away with their friendly eyes, wagging tails and excited barks. They're dogs, by the way, as welcome in the front offices of OMP as anyone else.

Joe, the bird dog of CEO Ed Fryar, is the most astute of the four, and he knows that if he jumps up on a visiting photographer, he'll get sent to timeout with a treat. Bonnie, the aging golden retriever that belongs to Executive Assistant Ashley Fryar Hiller, is content with her comfortable spot on the floor.

Don't let the relaxed atmosphere of the front office fool you, though, because Ozark Mountain Poultry is serious about business. And it has become increasingly successful since OMP's modest start in April 2001.

Fryar, a former agriculture professor at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, is the brains of the operations, although he is loath to take individual credit for any of the company's success. OMP generated $250 million in revenue in 2014, employs approximately 1,300 with plants in Rogers and Batesville and is the majority owner of Blue Rooster, which opened a deboning plant in Warren.

OMP has established itself as a leader in a niche market, namely antibiotic-free chicken that isn't raised in cages or fed animal byproducts. Fryar said that when the company first started, he bought whatever chicken was available, but now he has vertically integrated the company to control the raising, harvesting and processing of the chicken.

"That was something over the last 10 years, I've been more and more interested in that," said Fryar, who earned a doctorate in agriculture and applied economics from the University of Minnesota. "When we could raise our own birds, that was the way we were going to do it. It does cost more. Consumers are willing to pay a premium. We're a small company in a niche market."

A Commission System

Fryar started OMP with four stainless steel cutting tables and 25 employees in a processing space the...