History
The Luter family of Smithfield, Virginia, has been curing and selling hams since the turn of the century. Joseph W. Luter, Sr.'s first job was at a local meat packing plant. His young son, Joseph W. Luter, Jr., followed in his father's footsteps, learning every phase of the meat packing industry. And eventually persuading him to start their own business - Smithfield Packing Company was chartered in 1936.
In 1962, with Smithfield already on its way to becoming the "Ham Capital of the World", Joseph W. Luter III became the company's leader. Expanding the plant's facilities and product line became the key to a growth cycle that promoted Smithfield Packing Company from a family business into a large, investor-owned and publicly-traded company.
Today Smithfield Packing has become a worldwide marketer of pork products, the largest subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, Inc., and one of America's largest meat companies. It also owns the largest slaughterhouse in the world, located at Tar Heel, North Carolina, USA, and built in 1992. Joseph W. Luter IV, became president of Smithfield Packing in 2004 after having served as an executive vice president of the parent company.
Read more about this topic: Smithfield Packing Company
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of the prophets. He saw with an open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. Alone in all history he estimated the greatness of man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1874–1945)
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)