| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Meat Processing |
| Founded | (1855) |
| Headquarters | Greeley, CO, United States |
| Key people | Wesley Batista CEO of JBS S.A., Don Jackson, CEO of JBS USA |
| Parent | JBS S.A. |
| Website | jbssa.com |
Swift & Company is an American food procession company a wholly owned subsidiary of JBS S.A. (BM&F Bovespa:JBSS3), a Brazilian company that is the world's largest processor of fresh beef and pork, with more than US$30 billion in annual sales as of 2010. It is also the largest beef processor in Australia.
Swift & Company is based in Greeley, Colorado.[1] Its competitors include Cargill, Smithfield Foods, and Tyson Foods. In 2007, it was acquired by Brazilian JBS S.A..
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The meat packaging company was founded in 1855 by Gustavus Franklin Swift in Chicago, Illinois. In addition to meatpacking, Swift sold various dairy and grocery items, including Swiftning shortening, Allsweet margarine, Brookfield butter, cheese under the Pauly and Treasure Cave brands, and Peter Pan peanut butter. Swift began selling frozen turkeys under the Butterball brand in 1954.
Swift began moving into other fields, including insurance and petroleum, in the 1960s, and formed a holding company, Esmark, in 1973. Two years later, Esmark bought International Playtex from Meshulam Riklis' Rapid-American Corporation.
Esmark left the petroleum business in 1980, selling Vickers Petroleum to Mobil, while Swift's fresh meat business was spun off as a separate company, Swift Independent Packing Company (SIPCO) the same year. Esmark went on to purchase Norton Simon Inc. in 1983 before being purchased by Beatrice Foods the next year. ConAgra purchased half of Swift in 1988 and the other half in 1990, the same year ConAgra bought Beatrice Foods.
In 2009, JBS USA acquired 63% of Pilgrim's Pride[2] Chicken Company. That brand has been renamed as Pilgrim's. Since then JBS increased its share to 67%.
In 2002, Swift & Company was purchased by Hicks Muse Tate & Furst, a leading, Dallas-based private equity firm, and Booth Creek Management.
In December 2006, six of the company’s meat-packing facilities in Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Iowa, and Minnesota were raided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, resulting in the apprehension of 1,282 illegal aliens from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Peru, Laos, Sudan, and Ethiopia, and nearly 200 of them criminally charged after a ten month investigation into identity theft.[3]
On July 12, 2007 JBS S.A., the largest beef processor in South America and one of the largest worldwide beef exporters, purchased Swift & Company in a US$1.5 billion all-cash deal. The acquisition makes the newly consolidated JBS Swift Group the largest beef processor in the world. Prior to the deal JBS had market capitalization of US$4.2 billion and sales revenue of $2.1 billion, and operated in 23 plants in Brazil and 5 in Argentina.
On July 11, 2007 The Swift companies had also completed several tender offers and consent solicitations for financing notes. These included 10⅛% Senior Notes due 2009 and 12½% Senior Subordinated Notes due January 1, 2010 both issued by Swift & Company, 11% Senior Notes due 2010 issued by S&C Holdco 3 and 10¼% Convertible Senior Subordinated Notes due 2010 issued by Swift Foods Company.
On June 24, 2009 the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced that JBS Swift Beef Company, a Greeley, Colo. establishment, recalled approximately 41,280 pounds of beef products that may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. By June 30, the recall had risen to over 421,000 pounds.[4]
The beef products were produced on April 21 and 22, 2009, and were shipped to distributors and retail establishments in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin.[5]
On November 4, 2010 the FMCSA ordered JBS Carriers, a subsidiary of JBS to install electronic on-board recorders on their trucks after a compliance review found "serious violation of federal hours-of-service.[6]
In December 2010,JBS/Swift was assessed a $175,000 civil penalty for violating The Packer and Stockyards Act by failing to disclose when missing Fat-O-Meat’er data has prevented JBS from calculating the lean percent of a particular pork carcass or carcasses in a seller’s lot; and substituting an undisclosed lean value for pork carcasses with missing data when calculating carcass-merit payment for hogs delivered to JBS’ Worthington, Minn., Marshalltown, Iowa, and Louisville, Ky., processing plants. The Packers and Stockyards Act is a fair trade practice and payment protection law that promotes fair and competitive marketing environments for the livestock, meat, and poultry industries.[7]
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