Smithfield Foods

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Smithfield Foods

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 1936
Seat Smithfield , Virginia , United States
management
  • Kenneth M. Sullivan, CEO
Number of employees 48,000 (2010)
sales $ 14.4 billion (2015)
Branch Food, agriculture
Website www.smithfieldfoods.com

Smithfield Foods, Inc. is the largest pork producer in the USA and is headquartered in Smithfield, Virginia / USA. The company belongs to the Chinese WH Group (until January 2014 Shuanghui Group) based in Luohe , Henan / China, which is the largest pig breeding and pork processing group in the world.

Company data

The multinational company produces 14 million piglets per year and processes 27 million pigs into various meat products. In 2006 this was a total of 2.7 million tons of pork and 635,000 tons of fresh beef , which were marketed under brands such as Smithfield , Butterball , John Morrell , Gwaltney , Patrick Cudahy , Krakus , Cook's Ham and Stefano’s . Smithfield has offices in 26 states and 9 countries, and sales in 44 countries worldwide.

As of April 2006, the Smithfield Group had a total of around 52,500 employees, 22,500 of whom were under collective agreements . In the Smithfield pig farms, about 18,000 of the total of about 31,800 employees are unionized (approximately 56%). US government agencies have found Smithfield systematically violating workers' rights.

Major major competitors include Cargill , Tyson Foods, and JBS Swift Group .

history

The company's origins lie in today's largest subsidiary, the Smithfield Packing Company . This company was founded in 1936 by Joseph W. Luter and his son Joseph W. Luter junior. The company was based in the town of Smithfield on the Pagan River , a tributary of the James River in Isle of Wight County , Virginia , USA. Since Joseph W. Luter III took over the management of the company in 1964 , the current group has emerged through various company takeovers, including Farmland Foods and Eckrich . In September 2006, Smithfield Foods agreed to a merger with Premium Standard Farms, but this is subject to approval by the US Department of Justice's Antitrust Department.

Smithfield Packing Company has operated the world's largest slaughterhouse in Tar Heel , North Carolina, since 1992 . The head of this largest subsidiary has been Joseph W. Luter IV since 2004, who was previously the “executive vice president” of the parent company.

Smithfield Foods has received several awards, including Outstanding Socially Responsible Company and Meat Processor of 2006. Fortune magazine has named Smithfield in its annual Fortune 500 list for four years in a row “List of the top-selling American companies.

In early March 2008, the company announced that it would sell its Smithfield Beef Group Inc. (SBG), previously based in Green Bay , to JBS for $ 565 million in cash .

In October 2008, the merger of Campofrio Alimentación, SA with Groupe Smithfield to form Campofrío Food Group was approved. Due to financing problems and the difficult economic situation in Europe, Smithfield canceled the merger in June 2011.

On May 29, 2013, the Chinese Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd. announced an agreement to merge Smithfield Foods for $ 4.7 billion. Shuanghui International Ltd. is the majority shareholder of Henan Shuanghui Investment & Development Co., the largest meat processing company in the People's Republic of China (main brand: Shineway). In late September 2013, Smithfield was acquired by Shuanghui for over $ 7 billion. The now around 100,000 employees will produce around six billion kilograms of pork every year.

At the beginning of 2014, Shanghui signed an agreement with the Mexican food manufacturer Sigma Alimentos for a temporary financial participation in the indirect takeover of Campofrío by Sigma via Smithfield Foods. Shuanghui's stake in Campofrío was sold to majority partner Sigma Alimentos in mid-2015.

In early 2017, Smithfield completed the acquisition of California's largest pork processor, Clougherty Packaging (brands: Farmer John, Saag's Specialty Meats) from Hormel Foods .

In 2020, the company hit the headlines when the slaughterhouse in Sioux Falls , South Dakota was forced to close on April 12, 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States after infecting 240 workers.

Brands

Smithfield Foods is now also represented on the European market (eg has owned Sara Lee Foods Europe since 2006 , whose brands include “Aoste”, and the Weight Watchers brand in the cooked meat products sector), has subsidiaries and holdings in Germany, Romania, France, England, Poland and Spain. Other Smithfield Foods brands in Europe include: Morliny, PEK, Smithfield Authentic Deli, Krakus, Yano, Constar, Animex, Mazury, Agryf, Suwalki, Ekodrob, Tygryski, Morlinki, Berlinki, Comtim, Campofrío.

Smithfield strives to operate the entire value chain of meat production, i.e. fattening, slaughtering and processing into meat products itself.

criticism

Smithfield has been criticized for its environmental policy because it built huge manure or sewage storage facilities at its sites without subjecting these substances to any further treatment. Like its competitors, Smithfield also relies on industrial animal rearing and slaughtering. Independent controls of the living conditions of these animals do not take place; Animal rights activists document regular gross abuse and unworthy housing conditions .

Individual evidence

  1. [1]
  2. Information on hoovers.com
  3. Form 10-K. Smithfield Foods, Inc: Financial statements and supplementary data . United States Securities and Exchange Commission. January 3, 2016.
  4. Shuanghui International Changes Name to WH Group , Business Wire, Jan. 21, 2014
  5. Smithfield Foods added to FTSE4Goods list of socially responsible companies
  6. China's appetite for pork spurs $ 4.7 billion Smithfield deal . Reuters, May 29, 2013
  7. China's Shuanghui International acquires world's largest pork processor . Xinhua English.news.cn, May 29, 2013
  8. a b Heike Buchter: The great slaughter . In: Die ZEIT , November 14, 2013. 
  9. [2]
  10. Lauren Aratani, South Dakota pork plant closes after over 200 workers contract Covid-19 , The Guardian of April 13, 2020.

Web links