WASHINGTON (KELO.com) — The CEO of Smithfield Foods sent a 14-page letter in response to allegations from U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker that the pork processing giant was not doing enough to protect its workers.
Sioux Falls has a Smithfield pork packing plant. It was a hotspot for the coronavirus in March and April. The company shut it down for a time to try to increase social distancing and add other enhancements to protect workers from the virus.
CEO Kenneth Sullivan minced no words.
“Your letter (of June 22, 2020) is fraught with misinformation about our company and industry that appears to be strictly gleaned from media outlets that have made statements and inferences that grossly mischaracterize us, our values and response to COVID-19,” Sullivan wrote.
He added that the Senators were attempting to turn the company into “a political pawn.” Sullivan wrote.
“We are apolitical in our determination to fight through this crisis, and we wish representatives in Washington could unite on the need to feed Americans during a national emergency,” Sullivan notes.
He had additional criticism of the media.
“Candidly, we are weary of critics in the media who are detached from the realities of this worldwide pandemic,” Sullivan wrote.
However, during the pandemic, for example, KELO.com News has made numerous requests for interviews, information, and clarification about the epidemic to Smithfield’s media representatives. Smithfield has not answered our inquiries over the past five months.
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Sullivan also praised the workers and said the company was not able to get support from its “stakeholders.” He did not elaborate on who these “stakeholders” were.
“In the midst of this global pandemic, our brave team members have stood in the breach. It is unconscionable that we have – for the most part – done so alone,” Sullivan wrote. “A broad coalition of stakeholders should have been here with us developing solutions, implementing protections and, at the very least, supporting us. Support has been very difficult to find. Yet, we have soldiered on, guided by an abiding conviction we are doing the right thing.”
The letter goes on to note what efforts they took to protect Smithfield workers and to keep the pork supply chain working during the pandemic.
Click here to read the letter from Sullivan to Senators Warren and Booker.
A SHORT HISTORY ABOUT SMITHFIELD AND ITS OWNERS
Smithfield Food purchased the John Morrell facility in Sioux Falls in 1995.
“Forbes” magazine recently detailed Smithfield’s relationship to a Chinese holding company–WH Group–and its largest shareholder, a Chinese billionaire named Wan Long, WH Group’s CEO, and chairman.
“Founded in Smithfield, Virginia in 1936, Smithfield Foods boasts more than 40,000 U.S. employees with nearly 50 facilities across the country. In 2013, WH Group (formerly known as Shuanghui International Holdings) purchased Smithfield for $4.7 billion; including debt, the deal valued the firm at $7.1 billion, then the largest acquisition of a U.S. company by a Chinese business. WH Group went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange a year later, and furthered its American presence by buying Clougherty Packing, California’s largest pork processor, in 2017.”
