Kirk Smith | President
As a Boise, Idaho native, Kirk graduated from Boise State University in 1978 with a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting. He founded SSI Foods in 1984 – a Wilder, Idaho company – along with the late J.R. Simplot. In 1998, Kirk went on to start S & S Foods of Los Angeles, California, as a joint venture partnership with the J.R. Simplot company. In 2003, he led a partnership with Texas businessmen to form CTI Foods Holding Company, which acquired the assets of SSI Foods and S & S Foods. The next year, he built Chefco Foods in Arlington, Texas, and CTI Foods of Saginaw, Texas – a bean dehydration plant in 2006. In 2010, before selling CTI foods to a private equity company, Kirk relocated Chefco Foods in Arlington to Saginaw, with a state of the art, culinary driven facility, that was over 200,000 square feet.