Who is Deep South Foods

We are a family-oriented business located in South Georgia, specializing in food manufacturing. We are primarily focused on fully-cooked breaded and grilled protein items and specialize in chicken, beef, and pork.

Our company is rooted in the golden rule and we handle every customer with the utmost care, assuring you quality assurance at a premier level.

With over 80 years of combined experience, we are experts in the food processing industry and have the knowledge and capabilities to process, ship, and market your items with the highest grade of integrity.

Our Services

We offer a single-pass breading system and are capable of achieving fritter coverages. We have the ability to bypass the batter breading system and provide grill marks to items as well. We are approved for multiple species - including beef, pork and chicken. These items include grilled or batter-breaded fried items such as breast filets, tenders, breast meat strips, boneless wings, nuggets, and traditional bone-in wings.
With the strict requirements needed to produce a tight weight range of fully cooked items, we have a very sophisticated raw processing side to our business. Our processing lines are capable of producing 10,000 lbs per hour which include water knife cutters, vacuum packaging, tumble marination, IQF, and forming equipment that is used to form patties.
Deep South Foods offers a wide range of packing options that include clear plastic packing for food service industries and full-color printed packaging for retail sales. As always, we welcome private label packaging but offer branding and custom packaging services as well.
We are fully capable of producing full-muscle formed products and help in the development of portion sizes, marinations, flavor profiles, breading and coating, meat-lock utilization, and new products. By utilizing our network, we are able to produce products that rise to meet our customer’s quality standards and specifications.

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Meet the Team

CEO and Co-Founder of Deep South Foods
Clayton Keel began his career with ConAgra and has since worked with other powerhouse companies such as Cargill, Wayne Farms, Koch Foods, and Pilgrims. He is a graduate of Louisiana Tech University and a veteran of the United States Marine Corps.
Having over 40 years of experience in the poultry industry, his expertise includes fast food, retail, and commodity sales. In addition to, he has worked in procurement and production planning with Blue Mountain and other various clients.
He is goal-oriented whose strengths lie in organizing and planning. His motto “Evaluate, Discuss, Plan, Execute” are the keys to success and believes in building a strong team - in which each member feels he is heard and appreciated.
He is an active leader in his community, by donating and giving his time to the Knights of Columbus and various charities in his town.

Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer for Deep South Foods
Chris Jones began his professional career in the food industry at the age of 14 working at Chick-fil-a. He went on to work his way to Kitchen Manager, General Manager, District Manager and Executive Chef for restaurant chains such as Ruby Tuesdays, Cheesecake Factory and Island Pasta Company.
After 10+ years in restaurant kitchens, his experiences offered him a rare insight into what is needed at an industrial level to generate a better-finished product that delivers higher quality goods and are more appealing at the restaurant level.
He then took a position as a Sales Representative at a food brokerage firm, where he was a part of a team that developed custom-made items for the food service segment. By doing so, he was able to grow the business 10x in his tenure and became VP of Sales and Operations for all divisions of the firm.
While at the firm, he was able to open several other divisions. All of which Chris had a direct-hand in cultivating and building the divisions of Initial Sales, Military Food Sales, Asset-Based Transportation Services, Import/Export of Food Products, Promotion and Marketing-Goods Distribution, and Retail-Branded Frozen Foods.
These experiences have given him the expertise, skill-set needed to form and develop Deep South Foods.