History
The company was founded in 1918 when Walter Ingham Sr. purchased 42 acre of bush land in Casula as a gift to 18-year-old son, Walter Ingham. Walter Jr. embarked on a fruit and vegetable farming venture, eventually moving into the poultry business. Starting with just one cockerel and six hens, his flock quickly grew to 1,000 birds. On his death in 1953, his two sons, Jack and Bob Ingham took over the small breeding operation and built it into the largest producer of chickens and turkeys in Australia.
In the 1920s, as with most farmers during this time, Walter Ingham was self-sufficient and produced feed for his own poultry and horses. Most work was pre-mechanised, so back-breaking work included ploughing the fields. Due to a lack of meat during World War II, Inghams provided Australians with poultry products. Women contributed to the war effort by working on farms owned by the Ingham family.
In 1958, the company built first processing plant at Casula. By the early to mid-1960s, new styles and techniques of packaging and processing led to the company's involvement in the rapid process of expansion and development of the poultry industry. Ingham became a household name throughout Australia. In 1963, Ingham's had acquired 50% of A.A. Tegel turkey, and took the company over completely in 1994. In 1968 the first KFC restaurant opened in Sydney. In 1976, KFC and Ingham's aligned in a business partnership, providing new opportunities for both companies.
Acquisitions included Chickadee Food Pty Ltd (26 per cent in 1972); Harvey Farms in 1990, the number two chicken processor in New Zealand.
By the mid-1980s there was a dramatic shift to food processing creating a revolution for the poultry industry. The McDonald's chicken nugget product, developed by Tyson in the United States, was launched in Australia. By 1995, due to enormous popularity, Ingham's built a dedicated plant strictly to produce McDonald's nuggets.
In 2001, Ingham's established Murarrie poultry processing plant, the largest in the country with the most sophisticated machinery, production and supply chain technologies employing approximately 1,200 workers.
In 2008, the company officially cancelled their 'halal certification' status in Western Australia and is no longer supplying halal slaughtered chicken.[6]
In May 2015, Ingham's agreed to pay $80,000 to the Lake Macquarie Council, after a ruptured tank resulted in 1,700 litres of chicken blood and offal to flow into local waterways the previous year.[7]
Family
In 2019, Ingham chicken heir Robby Ingham sold his South Coast oceanfront property Ocean Pines in Gerringong, for the highest auction result recorded on the NSW South Coast of $11.3 million through real estate agent Craig Pontey.[8]
