CATFISH FARMING

A Family Heritage

Before Heartland Catfish Company was established, there was Tackett Fish Farms. The same farm that gave rise to the company it still supplies today, operated by the same family under the same name. What started as a single catfish pond has grown into the largest fish farm in the United States and remains the foundation Heartland Catfish Company is built on.

In 1964, the Tackett family moved to Belzoni in the Mississippi Delta to farm rice, soybeans and cotton, and in 1968 Mr. William Tackett built the first catfish pond in Humphreys County. The years that followed brought moves to Leflore County and Sunflower County, where Mr. Tackett, his son, Jim Tackett, and son-in-law, Joe Walker, continued farming row crops, built additional catfish ponds and started a catfish hatchery with brooder and fingerling operations.

The Heart of
Catfish Country

Tackett Fish Farms sits in the Mississippi Delta, the heart of the U.S. catfish industry. Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas together supply 93 percent of all U.S. Farm-Raised Catfish, and Tackett Fish Farms is one of the largest single contributors to that total. The farm’s location in the Delta gives it direct access to the water, soil and climate conditions that have made the region the center of American catfish farming for decades.

Founded on Family,
Focused on Flavor

Tackett Fish Farms supplies more than 67 percent of the catfish processed by Heartland Catfish Company, making it the single largest source in the company’s supply chain. That relationship reflects the same principle the company was built on: founded on family, focused on flavor, for generations to come. The farm and the plant remain part of one operation today, carrying forward the standards and values set forth by Mr. Tackett.

Raised For Consistent Flavor

Tackett Fish Farm catfish are fed a high-protein floating feed, a practice that gives the fish a clean, mild flavor profile and discourages the catfish from foraging elsewhere in the pond. This attention to feed and pond management is part of why it can guarantee the same flavor profile in every load that leaves the farm.