Smithfield Foods, Inc.

Who owns Smithfield Foods?

Smithfield Foods is majority-owned by WH Group, a Hong Kong-listed Chinese meat company, which indirectly holds approximately 87 percent. The remaining shares trade publicly on Nasdaq under SFD.

Is Smithfield Foods publicly traded?

Yes. Smithfield relisted on Nasdaq in January 2025 under ticker SFD, though it remains a controlled subsidiary of WH Group.

Is Smithfield Foods a Chinese company?

Smithfield is headquartered in Smithfield, Virginia, and is a US-incorporated company, but it is majority-owned by Hong Kong-listed WH Group, which acquired it in 2013.

What brands does Smithfield own?

Smithfield owns the Smithfield brand plus Eckrich, Nathan's Famous (licensed), Farmland, Armour, Gwaltney, and other packaged meat labels.

How much revenue does Smithfield Foods make?

Fiscal 2025 net sales were $15.5 billion, with operating profit of $1.292 billion and adjusted operating profit of $1.336 billion.

Where is Smithfield Foods headquartered?

Smithfield, Virginia, United States, where the company was founded in 1936.

Smithfield Packing Company was founded in 1936 in Smithfield, Virginia, by Joseph W. Luter Sr. and his son Joseph W. Luter Jr., building on the town's centuries-old tradition of curing Smithfield hams. Under Joseph W. Luter III, who took over in 1975, the company consolidated fragmented US pork processing through acquisitions and became the country's largest pork producer.

Smithfield acquired dozens of regional meat brands through the 1980s and 1990s, including Gwaltney, John Morrell, Eckrich, and Armour, while vertically integrating into hog farming through its Murphy-Brown livestock subsidiary.

The defining transaction came in 2013, when China's Shuanghui International acquired Smithfield for $4.7 billion, at the time the largest Chinese acquisition of an American company. Shuanghui reorganized as WH Group and listed in Hong Kong in 2014, with Smithfield operating as its US arm for the following decade.

In January 2025, WH Group returned Smithfield to public markets through a Nasdaq listing, selling a minority stake while retaining roughly 87 percent ownership. Shane Smith, a longtime company executive, serves as CEO of the public company.

Smithfield operates under a formal sustainability program covering animal care, environmental targets, food safety, and community support, and publishes annual sustainability reporting. It has committed to manure management improvements and renewable natural gas projects on its farms.

The company faces recurring scrutiny on animal welfare, environmental impacts from concentrated hog operations, and labor conditions in processing plants, including documented criticism during the COVID-19 pandemic when outbreaks affected multiple facilities. It is not B Corp certified.

Smithfield has faced sustained criticism and litigation over the environmental and public health impacts of its concentrated hog operations in North Carolina and other states, including jury verdicts in nuisance lawsuits brought by neighbors of hog farms. The company's 2020 plant closures during COVID-19 outbreaks drew national attention to worker safety conditions.