Don Tyson, an aw-shucks Arkansas farmhand who turned his father’s single-truck poultry-hauling business into a worldwide protein empire, crowning himself America’s “Chicken King,” died Thursday at his home near Springdale, Ark. He was 80 and had cancer.

Tyson was the longtime leader of Tyson Foods, the top U.S. meat producer with sales of more than $28 billion a year and 115,000 workers across the globe.

Under his direction, Tyson Foods became the leading supplier of chicken and meat products to 88 of the top 100 fast-food restaurants.

Tyson sold chicken to Burger King and KFC. When McDonald’s wanted to mass-produce a new poultry product, thumb-size boneless tenders, the world’s largest fast-food chain turned to Tyson.

He helped develop a new breed of chicken, genetically engineered to grow large breasts, and supplied the company with an endless pile of McNuggets.

the early 2000s, Tyson Foods marketed more than 6,000 products and turned out more than 25 billion pounds of beef, chicken and pork. At peak production, Tyson Foods facilities are capable of slaughtering 25 million chickens in a week.

The key to Tyson’s success was in processing meats in innovative ways. In 1972, his company was one of the first to sell frozen chickens to be cooked in microwaves.

His facilities could also debone, marinate, slice, batter, bread, cook and freeze chicken meat into patties, nuggets, tenders, quarters, legs, breasts and whole birds.

“People say, ‘I don’t want to cook that damn chicken, it takes too long,’ ” Tyson once said. “They just want to take it out of the package, plunk it in the microwave and serve it.”

Tyson is credited with developing Rock Cornish game hens, small fowl that weigh a few pounds. He sold them whole for 50 cents each — earning more of a profit than with larger chickens that sold by the pound.

Tyson made all of his company’s executives and workers wear the same outfits: khaki coveralls embroidered with the Tyson logo patch and each person’s first name.

He referred to all of his staff members as “co-workers,” not employees. Anyone who used the “E” word was fined a quarter.

Tyson was proud of his reputation as America’s “Chicken King.” His office in the company’s Arkansas headquarters was a replica of the White House Oval Office, with a chicken-man’s twist: The room had a rooster head above a fireplace and brass egg-shaped doorknobs.

Survivors include a son, three daughters and two grandchildren.