The company specializes in a variety of chicken and turkey products advertised as fresh and naturally locally grown.

[1] In 1959, Foster Farms acquired the Sunland Poultry[3] processing plant in Livingston, California, and in 1960, the company's headquarters was moved there from Modesto.

[4] After this purchase the company re-entered the turkey business and began to produce deli products under the Foster Farms name.

[6] By the mid-1980s, their sales had continued to improve, and they expanded again, purchasing Oregon's largest poultry producer, Fircrest Farms in Creswell, in 1987.

[4] In November 1989, Foster Farms obtained a turkey processing plant in Fresno, California, from Roxford Foods.

With the discovery that saturated fat intake was linked to heart disease, Americans began to eat less red meat and more chicken.

Sales began to drop in 1987, after a report broadcast on the television newsmagazine show 60 Minutes claimed that a high percentage of chicken was infected with salmonella.

[6] In response, the company invited the media to visit its processing centers so that customers could see that Foster Farms chickens were not harmful.

In 1992, brothers George and Tom gave up their roles as president and chief executive to a non-family member, Robert Fox.

In 1997, the company bought the leading poultry producer in Washington, Pederson's Fryer Farms, for approximately $7 million.

[2] This addition included Zacky Farms' Fresno plant, hatchery, feed mill, and live productions ranches, as well as its Los Angeles distribution center.

[2] In 2003, Foster Farms introduced the Fresh & Easy line of individually wrapped, pre-washed boneless, skinless breast and thighs.

[2] In 2007, the company began a campaign to counter plumping, the practice of adding up to 15% weight to raw poultry by injecting it with saltwater and seaweed extract and/or chicken stock.

[15][16] The Foster Farms Poultry Education and Research Facility at California State University at Fresno's Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology was also certified by the American Humane Association.

[17] In 1998, Foster Poultry Farms pleaded guilty in the United States District Court to a violation of the federal Clean Water Act.

[21] On October 7, 2013, the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a public health alert for raw chicken packaged at three Foster Farms facilities in California as an estimated 278 people had fallen ill in the past six months.

Strains of multiple antibiotic-resistant Salmonella Heidelberg were associated with chicken distributed to retail outlets in California, Oregon and Washington state.

[25] In mid-June 2014, Foster Farms executives announced that via stringent measures the company had cut Salmonella contamination in its raw cut-up chicken to about 2%, well below the national industry average of 25%.

They reiterated standard food safety advice to handle raw poultry safely and cook it to at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit.

The letter disputed the reported finding by the Oregon Public Health Division that one person had died in a 2004 Salmonella Heidelberg outbreak that the state linked to Foster Farms.

[37] The annual POWER Award honors companies that provide solutions to the state's water issues and serve as models to others in this regard.