{ mississippi made }
Reed Food Technology
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BY SUSAN MARQUEZ
hen you grab a packet of ketchup in a fast-food restaurant, do you ever wonder where it was made? Or how about the breading on the piece of fried chicken you ate for lunch? Most of us don’t think about the details of what we eat, but for a company in Pearl, Mississippi, the details are the reason they are in business. R.J. Reed went to work for McCarty Foods after graduating with a food science degree from Mississippi State University. Always interested in the food business, R.J. worked for the chicken processing division of McCarty Foods before they sold out to Tyson. Tyson wanted to move him to Arkansas, and they wanted him to take the formulas he developed. Instead, R.J. started his own company in 1995, and he took some of the employees from McCarty with him. In 1998, R.J. bought Specialty Foods from SaraLee, which included the production of condiments, salad dressings, barbeque sauces and juice cups. After renting a building for one year, he built a facility in Pearl in 2000, and that’s where Reed Food Technology stands today. His son, Jeff, says the company
40 • June/July 2022
