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:
“When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without a bank-account and doomed to manual labor, it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment’s comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)