J.R. “Jack” Simplot, 99, who launched an agribusiness empire that supplied French fries to the McDonald’s fast-food chain and then used his billion-dollar fortune to invest in computer chips, died May 25 at his home in Boise, Idaho. No cause of death was reported.
Simplot, an eighth-grade dropout, left his family’s Idaho farm at 14 after an argument with his father and went into the potato-growing business. He adapted to new growing and processing techniques and was a millionaire by age 30.
During World War II, he reportedly supplied one-third of the dried potatoes and onions consumed by American troops.
In the postwar boom for frozen and packaged foods, the J.R. Simplot Co. became dominant in its industry.
He converted his equipment to handle the demand for frozen French fries, instant potatoes, dried hash browns and frozen shoestring potatoes.
Seeking assured supplies, he invested in timber to make potato-shipping boxes and invested in phosphate mines to lower the cost of phosphate-rich fertilizer used in his fields.
In the mid-1960s, he became one of the major suppliers of French fries to McDonald’s and other restaurant chains. He joined the board of the McDonald’s Corp. and urged the company to expand into Asia, with the belief that potatoes could overtake rice as the continent’s dietary staple.
Venturing into cattle ranching, he accumulated one of the country’s largest properties — a 137-by-64-mile spread near Paisley, Ore. At one point, the land he owned or leased for growing or grazing was about the size of Connecticut.
“I guess I’m kind of a land hog,” he told the Portland Oregonian in 1996.
As of 2007, his family’s net worth was $3.6 billion, according to Forbes magazine, which ranked him No. 89 on the list of richest Americans. The magazine said he was the oldest living billionaire on its list of the 400 wealthiest Americans.
John Richard Simplot was born Jan. 4, 1909, in Dubuque, Iowa, and raised on a farm near the Idaho town of Burley.
When he left home, his mother gave him four $20 gold coins, and he moved to a hotel in Declo, Idaho, where he found work in the potato-sorting workhouses and began a life of business ventures focused on potatoes.
Starting in 1980, he spent tens of millions of dollars to help Idaho’s Micron Technology become an important producer of computer chips.
Survivors include his wife, Esther Simplot, and three children from his first marriage, Don, Scott and Gay.
Simplot described himself as an “old potato farmer” and drove a white Lincoln Town Car with “Spud” vanity plates. He ate several times a week at McDonald’s, always asking for hash browns or French fries.
