Game Changers: William Darr

William Darr lets his businesses speak for him. And they do to the tune of roughly $200 million each year between the three companies – American Dehydrated Foods, International Dehydrated Foods and Food Ingredients Technology Co. A pioneer in modern Ozarks agribusiness, Darr took an idea to re-purpose unused egg protein for the premium pet food and animal feed industry and founded ADF in the late 1970s. A few years later, he started IDF with a focus on chicken protein for human consumption, supplying such food labels as Campbell’s and Knorr. Today, the companies’ plants in Monett, Verona, Alabama and Georgia employ 500. The Darr Family Foundation awards 10 scholarships each year to the MSU agriculture department that bears his name and to high school students in his southeast Missouri hometown of Ellington.

One of SBJ's 31 Game Changers in conjunction with Springfield Business Journal's 31st anniversary.