J. R. Simplot

John Richard Simplot ( born January 4, 1909 in Dubuque, Iowa, † 25 May, 2008 Boise, Idaho) was an American entrepreneur in the food industry. His fortune was estimated in 2005 to about 2.5 billion U.S. dollars.

His company J. R. Simplot Company is considered the inventor of frozen fries. He realized that the freezing of french fries could be a very profitable business. 1948 undertook his first company, first rather unsuccessful efforts to produce deep-frozen French fries. The frozen french fries sank to the bottom of the fry baskets and were not fried evenly. 1953 Simplot finally registered his patent for frozen French fries.

Simplot supplies McDonald's.

J. R. Simplot Company

The now internationally active company has approximately 10,000 employees; The businesses include food production ( vegetables, fish and meat processing, especially into meals) and packaging, ranch operation and cattle fattening, by mining of phosphates and silicates, fertilizer production and distribution, seed growing ( grasses ), fodder production and retail.

Family

John Gay Simplots daughter was married from 1964 to 1992 with the politician Butch Otter.