The story
Founding and early history
The company traces its history to 1936, when Joseph W. Luter Sr. and his son, Joseph W. Luter Jr., opened the Smithfield Packing Company in Smithfield, Virginia. The men were working for the meatpacker P. D. Gwaltney, Jr. & Co. when they set up the company; Joseph W. Luter Sr. was a salesman and Joseph W. Luter Jr. the general manager. Financing for the new company came from Peter Pruden of Suffolk and John S. Martin of Richmond. In an interview in 2009, Joseph W. Luter III described how the Luters would buy 15 hog carcasses a day, cut them up, box them, and sell them to small stores in Newport News and Norfolk. They built the Smithfield Packing Company plant in 1946 on Highway 10. By 1959 they had a workforce of 650.
Joseph W. Luter Jr. served as Smithfield's chief executive officer (CEO) until his death in 1962. He owned 42 percent of the company when he died. His son, Joseph W. Luter III, was at Wake Forest University at the time and joined Smithfield that year. Working in sales, he borrowed enough to buy a further eight-and-a-half percent of the shares, and in 1966 he became chairman and CEO. He told Virginia Living that the company was killing around 3,000 hogs a day when he took over, and 5,000 by the time he left in January 1970, while the number of employees rose from 800 to 1,400. In July 1969 he sold Smithfield to Liberty Equities for $20 million; they asked him to stay on, but in January 1970 they fired him. From then until 1975 he developed a ski resort, Bryce Mountain, in Virginia.
At the recommendation of its banks, Smithfield re-hired Joseph W. Luter III as CEO in April 1975 when it found itself in financial difficulties. At the time, according to Luter, the company had a net worth of under $1 million, debt of $17 million, and losses of $2 million a year. He said it even lost money in December 1974—holiday-ham season—which was "like Budweiser losing money in July". Luter's restructuring of the company is credited with its improved performance. He remained as CEO until 2006 and as chairman until the company was sold to WH Group in 2013. His son, Joseph W. Luter IV, became an executive vice-president of Smithfield Foods in 2008 and president of the Smithfield Packing Company, by then the parent company's largest subsidiary. He resigned in October 2013. At that point his stock was valued at $21.1 million and Joseph W. Luter III's at $30 million.
Mergers and acquisitions (1981–2007)
Joseph W. Luter III began his expansion of Smithfield in 1981 with the purchase of its main competitor, Gwaltney of Smithfield, for $42 million. This was followed by the acquisition of almost 40 companies in the pork, beef, and livestock industries between 1981 and around 2008, including Esskay Meats/Schluderberg-Kurdle in Baltimore, Valley Dale in Roanoke, and Patrick Cudahy in Milwaukee in 1984.
In 1992, Smithfield opened the world's largest processing plant, a 973,000-square-foot facility in Tar Heel, North Carolina, which by 2000 could process 32,000 pigs a day. Smithfield purchased John Morrell & Co in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in 1995, and Circle Four Farms in 1998. In 1999 it bought two of the largest pig producers in the United States: Carroll's Foods for around $500 million and Murphy Family Farms of North Carolina; the latter was at that point the largest producer. Smithfield settled the acquisition with 3.3 million shares of Smithfield Foods stock, $178 million in cash, and the assumption of about $216 million of debt.
Farmland Foods of Kansas City was added in 2003, as were Sara Lee's European Meats, ConAgra Foods Refrigerated Meats, Butterball (the poultry producer), Brown’s of Carolina, and Premium Standard Farms in 2007. Smithfield sold its 49 percent share in Butterball in 2008 for an estimated $175 million. In 2009 Smithfield was assessed a $900,000 penalty by the U.S. Justice Department to settle charges that the company had engaged in illegal merger activity during its takeover of Premium Standard Farms.
The acquisitions caused concern among regulators in the United States regarding the company's control of the food supply. After Smithfield's purchase of Murphy Family Farms in 1999, the Agriculture Department described it as "absurdly big". According to agricultural researchers Jill Hobbs and Linda Young, writing in 2001, the acquisitions constituted a "major structural change" in the hog industry in the United States, leaving Smithfield in control of 10–15 percent of the country's hog production. As of 2006 four companies—Smithfield, Tyson Foods, Swift & Company, and Cargill—were responsible for the production of 70 percent of pork in the United States.
2013 purchase by Shuanghui Group
On May 29, 2013, WH Group, then known as Shuanghui Group and sometimes also Shineway Group, the largest meat producer in China, announced the purchase of Smithfield Foods for $4.72 billion, a sale first suggested in 2009. At the time of the deal, China was one of the US's largest pork importers, although it had 475 million pigs of its own, roughly 60 percent of the global total. According to Lynn Waltz, the Chinese ate 85.3 pounds of pork per person in 2012, compared to 59.3 in the US.
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Shuanghui said it would list Smithfield on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange after completing the takeover. On September 6, 2013, the US government approved Shuanghui International Holding's purchase of Smithfield Food, Inc. The deal was valued at approximately $7.1 billion, which included debt. It was the largest stock acquisition by a Chinese company of an American company. The deal included Smithfield's 146,000 acres of land, which made WH Group one of the largest overseas owners of American farmland.
For decades Smithfield had run its acquisitions as independent operating companies, but in 2015 it set up the "One Smithfield" initiative to unify them; Circle Four Farms in Milford, Utah, for example, became Smithfield Hog Production-Rocky Mountain Region. Ken Sullivan said in 2017 that he saw the company's future as a "consumer-packaged goods business".
Mergers and acquisitions (2016-2019)
In 2016, Smithfield purchased the Californian pork processor Clougherty Packing PLC for $145 million, along with its Farmer John and Saag's Specialty Meats brands. Smithfield also acquired PFFJ (Pigs for Farmer John) LLC and three of its farms from Hormel Foods Corporation. In August 2017 Smithfield acquired Pini Polska, Hamburger Pini, and Royal Chicken of Poland, and in September that year it announced that it would purchase two Romanian packaged-meat suppliers, Elit and Vericom. In 2019 it acquired Maier Com in Romania.
Nasdaq IPO (2025)
On Jan 28, 2025, Smithfield became publicly traded with an initial public offering of 26 million shares and was listed on the Nasdaq, though WH Group retained 90% of the company stock. In September 2025, An additional 19.5 million shares were sold, reducing WH Group's majority ownership to 88% of the company.
Nathan's Famous (2026)
On January 21, 2026, Smithfield agreed to acquire hot dog brand Nathan's Famous in a deal worth $450 million. Smithfield already had an exclusive license to manufacture, distribute, market and sell Nathan's product, but the licenses had been set to expire in March 2032.
Successfully closing the acquisition will secure Smithfield’s rights to this iconic brand into perpetuity.
From Wikipedia’s article on Smithfield Foods, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.8