Perdue Farms developed a specialized chicken-feed that included marigold blossoms, which imparted a characteristic golden yellow hue to the skins of his chickens.

[6][7][8][9] In the 1980s, Perdue twice sought assistance from then-Mafia boss Paul Castellano to fend off a union's effort to represent workers at his company, according to a federal commission on labor corruption.

[3] The firm came up with the idea of putting Perdue on television himself, with the tag line, "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.

Frank Perdue was a patron of treasure hunter Mel Fisher, helping fund his expedition to locate the wreckage of the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha, which had sunk off the coast of the Florida Keys in 1622.

Perdue donated much of his portion of the recovered gems and coins to the Smithsonian Institution and to Delaware Technical Community College.