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Smithfield Foods Inc., the largest pork processor in the U.S. by volume, is closing an 1,800-person plant in California and shrinking the size of its hog herd in the region, saying the cost of doing business in the state wasn’t worth it. Smithfield, owned by Hong Kong-based pork conglomerate WH Group Ltd., said Friday that it would close the plant in Vernon, Calif., just outside of Los Angeles, in early 2023, citing higher taxes, utility costs and labor costs in the state compared with other areas where it operates. The decision to close the plant comes as food suppliers are...

There’s an old saying that we should invest in land because there’s a limited amount of it, so it won’t lose its value. But when it comes to farmland in the United States, there could be a more pressing reason to invest these days – national security. China has become one of the biggest players in American agriculture. In the decade ending in January 2020, the Chinese snapped up 192,000 acres of America’s 900 million acres of farmland. That may not sound like much, but some experts say China’s influence is much larger but concealed by having American straw owners...

Gov. Kristi Noem said Thursday that she plans to speak with Smithfield Food workers by phone Thursday night and Friday morning. Her comments come one week after more than 50 organizations and individuals, including Smithfield workers, asked to meet with her to discuss conditions at the plant in Sioux Falls. Noem said she worked with the human resources staff at Smithfield to set up the phone calls. “We’ve lined up a call that will facilitate interpreters so that we can have questions and answers and get them all the information they may be wanting,” Noem said at her daily coronavirus...

A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a worker advocacy group's lawsuit alleging that Smithfield Foods Inc. failed to sufficiently protect employees at a pork processing plant in Missouri amid the coronavirus outbreak. U.S. District Judge Greg Kays ruled that Smithfield was already taking many of the health precautions that the Rural Community Workers Alliance had called for in its lawsuit, Reuters reported. The precautions include screening production-line workers for symptoms of the virus and installing barriers in facilities to help keep employees apart. Kay also said it wasn't within the court's purview to oversee working conditions. He noted that under...

A Sioux Falls meatpacking plant was forced to close when it became the epicenter of COVID-19 in South Dakota. Three weeks after executives from its Chinese owner, WH Group, visited the plant, a month after President Trump’s ban on travel from China, nearly 600 of Smithfield Foods’ 3700 employees tested positive for the virus, as have 135 additional people in close contact with employees. Smithfield Foods was started in 1936 by a family in Virginia. Today, the Chinese own Armour and the famous Smithfield hams, together with the most quintessential American brand of all -- Nathan’s Famous hot dogs, with...

An estimated 50 workers at the Smithfield Foods pork plant in Crete briefly walked off the job Tuesday in protest after it was announced that the plant would reverse course and stay open. Local officials were told Monday that the plant would close to contain a growing coronavirus outbreak among workers. "Our Crete, Nebraska, facility remains operational," a company spokesman said Tuesday. "The company will make an announcement if there are material changes to its operations." The plant, roughly 25 miles southwest of Lincoln, employs about 2,000 people. At least 48 workers have tested positive for the coronavirus. Eric Reeder,...

With Smithfield Foods' Sioux Falls pork plant closed by a COVID-19 outbreak, Minnesota hog farmer Greg Boerboom may face a grim choice. The South Dakota plant had been scheduled this week to slaughter about 1,400 of Boerboom's pigs. Smithfield directed 25% of that shipment to another Smithfield plant in Illinois — with Boerboom paying the extra $1,500 in freight costs. The remaining 850 hogs are in limbo. Boerboom is seeking a destination for them before they grow too big for market and thus face euthanization. Over 3,000 healthy pigs were put down in Minnesota this week, and 200,000 more could...

Workers at a Smithfield Foods pork plant in Milan, Missouri, say that for years they have endured repetitive stress injuries on the meat processing line — and urinary tract infections because they had so few bathroom breaks. But as the coronavirus pandemic has emerged, workers say they have encountered another health complication: reluctance to cover their mouths while coughing or to clean their faces after sneezing because this can cause them to miss a piece of meat as it goes by, creating a risk of disciplinary action. The claims appear in a complaint filed Thursday in federal court by an...

Yesterday’s Washington Post carried an attack on South Dakota and its governor, Kristi Noem, under the headline South Dakota’s Governor resisted ordering people to stay home. Now it has one of the nation’s largest coronavirus hot spots. The Post’s article is popular on Twitter, as liberal “blue checks” use it to express their hope that lots of South Dakotans die as punishment for their temerity in electing a Republican governor. As governors across the country fell into line in recent weeks, South Dakota’s top elected leader stood firm: There would be no statewide order to stay home.Such edicts to...

A Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, was visited by representatives from its Chinese Communist Party-tied parent company one month before the first COVID-19 case was confirmed at the facility, according to three employees. After the first illness was confirmed at the plant on March 26, the facility quickly became the epicenter of the state’s outbreak of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem wrote in an April 11 letter that 238 plant employees had contracted the virus, accounting for 38 percent of the state’s confirmed...

Yesterday’s Washington Post carried an attack on South Dakota and its governor, Kristi Noem, under the headline South Dakota’s Governor resisted ordering people to stay home. Now it has one of the nation’s largest coronavirus hot spots...The entire point of the article is that the Smithfield experience proves Governor Noem was wrong not to order a mass closure of businesses. But wait! It is obvious even to a casual reader that the Post’s attack makes no sense. The article acknowledges that the Smithfield plant had already “been deemed essential by the federal government,” so no order Noem might have issued...

Virginia-based Smithfield Foods announced Sunday that it is closing its pork processing plant in Sioux Falls until further notice after hundreds of employees tested positive for the coronavirus — a step the head of the company warned could hurt the nation’s meat supply. The announcement came a day after South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken wrote to Smithfield and urged the company to suspend operations for 14 days so that its workers could self-isolate and the plant could be disinfected. The plant, which employs about 3,700 people in the state’s largest city, has become a...

Bad news bacon lovers. Virginia-based Smithfield Foods Inc., the world’s biggest pork producer, is warning that an outbreak of African swine fever wiping out hog farms in China could result in a stateside shortage of pig belly and even ham next year. Though the crisis hasn’t impacted the U.S. market yet, that that could change as China is forced to increase imports to satisfy demand in 2020, Bloomberg reports. The Chinese “are insatiable in their appetite for pork,” Arnold Silver, director of raw materials procurement at Smithfield, said at the Urner Barry Global Protein Summit in Chicago earlier this week....

Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest producer of pork products, has set its sights on the plant-based market. The company, which is a subsidiary of China’s WH Group, announced the launch of its first meat-free range today. The Smithfield-owned Pure Farmland brand mimics Beyond Meat’s and Impossible Foods’ “bleeding” plant meat products that have sparked a food revolution in recent months. Pure Farmland will launch with eight initial products including plant-based burgers, meatballs, breakfast patties, and ground beef style “protein starters”. Some of the items will also feature vegan cheese; a burger with dairy-free cheddar, and meatballs with dairy-free parmesan. It’s...

A U.S. committee that reviews mergers between American companies and those overseas has given clearance to the proposed sale of Smithfield Foods Inc. to a Chinese company. Smithfield said Friday that the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States gave clearance for the pork producer to be acquired by Shuanghui International Holdings Limited. The committee reviews overseas transactions for national security implications. …

Yet another company has dropped Paula Deen in the wake of the Food Network giving her the boot and QVC apparently thinking about doing the same. Smithfield, a major pork company (that was recently purchased by a Chinese company), says it will no longer partner with Deen for her line of "Paula Deen Collection" hams in the wake of her n-word controversy, TMZ reports. "Smithfield is determined to be an ethical food industry leader and it is important that our values and those of our spokespeople are properly aligned," reads a statement from the company. As such, "we are terminating...

Chinese meat company Shuanghui International’s plans to buy U.S.-based pork producer Smithfield Foods Inc. has some lawmakers worried the deal could create food safety issues for U.S. consumers. Mostly silent after the deal was announced a week ago during a Congressional recess, lawmakers are taking a closer look. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan, said on Wednesday that federal agencies considering the merger “must take China’s and Shuanghui’s troubling track record on food safety into account.” … That concern stems from recent food safety issues at Shuanghui and in China. The company was forced to recall its...

Traders find shelter in options as continued drought and heat ravage Midwest crops.--Worry persists about the impact of expensive feed on packager costs NEW YORK--With Midwest drought conditions worsening, investors feeling the heat are seeking protection from rising corn prices. Buying bearish options on Tyson Foods Inc. (TSN) and Smithfield Foods Inc. (SFD)--whose animals feast on corn--was one way of doing so. Traders snapped up protective put options on packaged-meat producers that are especially sensitive to the price of corn feed. Activity suggests traders fear continued weakness in the shares as the corn-crop situation becomes more precarious. One trader in...

<p>RICHMOND, Va. - Chinese meat processor Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd. has agreed to buy Smithfield Foods Inc. for approximately $4.72 billion in a deal that will take the world's biggest pork producer private.</p> <p>Hong Kong-based Shuanghui owns a variety of global businesses that include food, logistics and flavoring products and is China's largest meat processing enterprise. Smithfield owns brands such as Armour, Farmland and its namesake.</p>

USAgNet - Smithfield Packing Company Inc., a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, plans to begin its planned closure of a Portsmouth, Va. hot dog and lunch meat production facility. MeatPoultry reports that the firm announced the closure this past November. Layoffs are expected to begin at the Portsmouth plant in January, and the facility will be closed by the end of March 2013. The company says its first round of layoffs will impact about 120 workers. Another 400 employees will be affected by the plant closure....