With US markets off for Presidents’ Day, a quiet news cycle let the world’s largest pork producer hog some attention.
Virginia-based, Hong Kong-owned Smithfield Foods announced plans to build a $1.3 billion “state-of-the-art” processing facility in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Local officials billed it as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity,” though they have plenty of reasons to ham things up.
Bringing Home the Bacon
Founded in 1936 and named for its “Ham Capital of the World” Virginia hometown, Smithfield was a central player in the US pork industry’s global ascendance through aggressive expansion. It acquired more than three dozen companies from the 1980s to the 2000s and is responsible for roughly a quarter of US pig production. But Smithfield’s multinational operations and massive market share couldn’t insulate it from years of rising commodity prices, particularly for grain, and it was sold for $4.7 billion to China’s WH Group in 2013 as pressure from investors over tighter margins intensified…