November 20, 2003

 

 

Smithfield To Retain Plants of Farmland's Pork Division

 

Smithfield Foods Inc. plans to keep plants operated by Farmland Foods Inc.'s pork division open and bring their maintenance up to date, a Smithfield executive said Tuesday.

 

Richard Poulson, executive vice president for Virginia-based Smithfield, said his company also plans to retain all of about 6,100 Farmland workers.

 

Most of those employees work in livestock production and processing plants in the US' Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Massachussetts, Nebraska, Ohio and Utah. A Farmland plant in Wichita processes pork for sausage and employs 520 workers.

 

Smithfield is acquiring Farmland's pork division under an agreement worked out in federal bankruptcy court. Smithfield plans to pay $367.4 million in cash for almost all of the assets of the Kansas City, Mo.-based Farmland division.

 

"We consider the work force and the management team to be, probably, the most valuable of the assets we acquired," Poulson said.

 

Poulson spoke during a public hearing called by three states' attorneys general, Phill Kline, of Kansas; Jon Bruning, of Nebraska, and Larry Long, of South Dakota. They had hearings Monday in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Sioux Falls, S.D.

 

Smithfield executives are trying to dispel fears that Smithfield will shut down Farmland plants after acquiring its assets, or that it will idle an existing Smithfield plant.

 

Poulson said Smithfield considers the Farmland plants superior to most of its own but said maintenance had been neglected because of Farmland's bankruptcy filing.

 

"We will bring those plants up to full speed, as far as maintenance is concerned," he said.

 

Long asked about the future of an existing John Morrell and Co. plant, owned by Smithfield, in Sioux Falls. Poulson said that although the plant is "tired," his company has plans to improve it, not shut it down.