Hormel Foods Corporation is an American food processing company founded in 1891 in Austin, Minnesota, by George A. Hormel as George A. Hormel & Company. The company originally focused on the packaging and selling of ham, sausage and other pork, chicken, beef and lamb products to consumers, adding Spam in 1937. By the 1980s, Hormel began offering a wider range of packaged and refrigerated foods. The company changed its name to Hormel Foods Corporation in 1993, and uses the Hormel brand on many of its products; the company's other brands include Planters, Columbus Craft Meats, Dinty Moore, Jennie-O, and Skippy. The company's products are available in 80 countries.
A frozen meal is a packaged frozen meal that comes portioned for an individual. A frozen meal in the United States and Canada usually consists of a type of meat for the main course, and sometimes vegetables, potatoes, and/or a dessert. The main dish can also be pasta or fish. In European frozen meals, Indian and Chinese meals are common. Another form of convenience food, which is merely a refrigerated ready meal that requires less heating but expires sooner, is popular in the UK.
The J.M. Smucker Company, also known as Smuckers, is an American manufacturer of food and beverage products. Headquartered in Orrville, Ohio, the company was founded in 1897 as a maker of apple butter. J.M. Smucker currently has three major business units: consumer foods, pet foods, and coffee. Its flagship brand, Smucker's, produces fruit preserves, peanut butter, syrups, frozen crustless sandwiches, and ice cream toppings.
Conagra Brands, Inc. is an American consumer packaged goods holding company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Conagra makes and sells products under various brand names that are available in supermarkets, restaurants, and food service establishments. Based on its 2021 revenue, the company ranked 331st on the 2022 Fortune 500.
Cargill, Incorporated, is a privately held American global food corporation based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and incorporated in Wilmington, Delaware. Founded in 1865, it is the largest privately held corporation in the United States in terms of revenue. If it were a public company, it would rank, as of 2015, number 15 on the Fortune 500, behind McKesson and ahead of AT&T. Cargill has frequently been the subject of criticism related to the environment, human rights, finance, and other ethical considerations.
Tyson Foods, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, based in Springdale, Arkansas, that operates in the food industry. The company is the world's second-largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork after JBS S.A. It annually exports the largest percentage of beef out of the United States. Together with its subsidiaries, it operates major food brands, including Jimmy Dean, Hillshire Farm, Ball Park, Wright Brand, Aidells, and State Fair. Tyson Foods ranked No. 79 in the 2020 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.
Swanson is a brand of TV dinners, broths, and canned poultry made for the North American and Hong Kong markets. The former "Swanson Company" was founded in Omaha, Nebraska, where it developed improvements of the frozen dinner. The TV dinner business is currently owned by Conagra Brands, while the broth business is currently owned by the Campbell Soup Company. TV dinner products currently sold under the brand include Swanson's Classics TV dinners and pot pies, and the current broth lineup includes chicken broth and beef broth.
Ore-Ida is an American brand of potato-based frozen foods currently produced and distributed by Kraft Heinz's, H.J. Heinz Company Brands LLC. based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Hot Pockets is an American brand of microwaveable turnovers generally containing one or more types of cheese, meat, or vegetables. Hot Pockets was founded by Chef America Inc. Since April 20, 2002, they have been produced by Nestlé.
Maple Leaf Foods Inc. is a Canadian consumer packaged meats company. Its head office is in Mississauga, Ontario.
JBS USA Holdings, Inc. is an American food processing company and a wholly owned subsidiary of the multinational company JBS S.A. The subsidiary was created when JBS entered the U.S. market in 2007 with its purchase of Swift & Company. JBS specializes in Wagyu Beef, the only certified Japanese Cattle distributor on the entire eastern U.S. seaboard
Animal Outlook, formerly known as Compassion Over Killing (COK), is a nonprofit animal advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.. It is headed since May 2021 by Executive Director Cheryl Leahy, who succeeded Erica Meier. Formed in 1995, as a high school club, their primary campaigns are to advocate against factory farming and promote vegan eating. While the group welcomes those who are interested in animal welfare who eat meat, it encourages a transition to a plant-based diet.
Food safety is used as a scientific method/discipline describing handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent food-borne illness. The occurrence of two or more cases of a similar illness resulting from the ingestion of a common food is known as a food-borne disease outbreak. This includes a number of routines that should be followed to avoid potential health hazards. In this way, food safety often overlaps with food defense to prevent harm to consumers. The tracks within this line of thought are safety between industry and the market and then between the market and the consumer. In considering industry to market practices, food safety considerations include the origins of food including the practices relating to food labeling, food hygiene, food additives and pesticide residues, as well as policies on biotechnology and food and guidelines for the management of governmental import and export inspection and certification systems for foods. In considering market to consumer practices, the usual thought is that food ought to be safe in the market and the concern is safe delivery and preparation of the food for the consumer. Food safety, nutrition and food security are closely related. Unhealthy food creates a cycle of disease and malnutrition that affects infants and adults as well.
On September 3, 1991, an industrial fire caused by a failed improvised repair to a hydraulic line destroyed the Imperial Food Products chicken processing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina. Despite three previous fires in 11 years of operation, the plant had never received a safety inspection. The fire killed 25 people and injured 54, many of whom were unable to escape due to locked exits. It was the second deadliest industrial disaster in North Carolina's history.
This timeline of the 2007 pet food recalls documents how events related to the 2007 pet food recalls unfolded. Several contaminated Chinese vegetable proteins were used by pet food makers in North America, Europe and South Africa, leading to kidney failure in animals fed the contaminated food. Both the centralization of the pet food industry and the speed and manner of the industry and government response became the subjects of critical discussion.
Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company was a California-based meat packaging company. It was forced into bankruptcy due to costs from a meat recall and ensuing litigation.
Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) was a peanut-processing business which is now defunct as a result of one of the most massive and lethal food-borne contamination events in U.S. history. PCA was founded in 1977 and initially run by Hugh Parnell, father of Stewart Parnell, with him and two other sons. The company was sold in 1994–1995 with the senior Parnell retiring, and with Stewart Parnell and others remaining with the new company as consultants. In 2000, control of PCA returned to Stewart Parnell via a private sale. Over this history, PCA came to operate processing facilities in Blakely, Georgia, Suffolk, Virginia, and Plainview, Texas, providing peanut and peanut butter products primarily to the "institutional food" market (schools, prisons and nursing homes), to food manufacturers for use in cookies, snacks, ice cream, and dog treats, and to other markets.
Stuart Charles Alexander, nicknamed "the Sausage King," was an American businessman, political candidate and murderer. Alexander was the owner of the Santos Linguiça Factory in San Leandro, California, a family business which was founded by Alexander's aunt, Pia Santos, and her husband, Antonio, in San Leandro, California in 1921. In 2004, Alexander was convicted of the murders of three state and USDA meat compliance officials in 2000.
The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is the public health regulatory agency responsible for ensuring that United States' commercial supply of meat, poultry, and egg products is safe, wholesome, and correctly labeled and packaged. The FSIS draws its authority from the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906, the Poultry Products Inspection Act of 1957 and the Egg Products Inspection Act of 1970. The FSIS also acts as a national health department and is responsible for the safety of public food-related establishments as well as business investigation.
The meat industry has been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Outbreaks of the virus have taken place in factories operated by the meat packing industry and the poultry processing industry. These outbreaks affected dozens of plants, leading to closures of some factories and disruption of others, and posed a significant threat to the meat supply in the United States. By April 27, 2020, there were at least 115 facilities with cases across 23 states, and at least 4,913 workers diagnosed positive with COVID-19, or approximately 3 percent of the workforce, with 20 deaths reported.
