Hormel Foods

Hormel Foods is a Fortune 500, multinational manufacturer and marketer of consumer-branded food and meat products.At Hormel Foods, we are committed to providing consumers with high-quality, high-value branded products that are flavorful, nutritious and convenient. Guided by Our Way—our internal principles platform—we strive to set industry standards for product quality, work environment and community engagement.

1891: A. Hormel & Company), a meatpacking and food-processing corporation begun in Austin in 1891, is the economic mainstay, supplemented by other food-processing concerns and the manufacture of cardboard cartons. The company was founded as George A. Hormel & Company in Austin, Minnesota by George A. Hormel in 1891. Their partnership dissolved in 1891 as Hormel started his own meat packing operation in northeast Austin in a creamery building on the Cedar River.

1899: In 1899 Hormel spent $40,000 to upgrade his facilities, building a new refrigeration facility, new pumps and engines, an electric elevator, smokehouses, and a hog kill.

1901: 1901: The company is incorporated. In 1901 the company acquired several acres of adjacent land, and two years later it constructed additional facilities such as a casing processing room and a machine shop.

1903: Hormel acquired his first patent in 1903 with Dairy Brand and began to open distribution centers. The name Dairy Brand was first used in 1903.

1905: Between 1905 and the end of World War I, exports grew to constitute about a third of the company's yearly volume. On the international front, Hormel Foods has been particularly active in recent years, though it is no newcomer to exports, having first sold abroad in 1905. George Hormel established export business in 1905 and by the end of World War I, exports accounted for about 33 percent of the company's yearly sales.

1908: In 1908 it also opened a new office facility, which the company used for more than 60 years.

1915: In 1915, Hormel began selling dry sausages under the names of Cedar Cervelat, Holsteiner and Noxall Salami.

1916: Hormel products began appearing in national magazines such as Good Housekeeping as early as 1916.

1921: In 1921, when George's son Jay Hormel returned from service in the First World War, he uncovered that assistant controller Cy Thomson had embezzled $1,187,000 from the company over the previous ten years.

1926: In 1926, after years of research, Hormel introduced "Hormel Flavor-Sealed Ham," America's first canned ham.

1929: In 1929 Jay C. Hormel became the company's second president, and his father, George, became chairman of the board.

1933: The company survived a bitter labor strike in 1933, during which disgruntled union employees, armed with clubs, physically removed Jay Hormel from the company's general offices and shut off the plant's refrigeration system. In 1933, workers, led by itinerant butcher Frank Ellis, formed the Independent Union of All Workers and conducted one of the nation's first successful sit-down strikes; the union would later join the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO, later AFL-CIO).

1935: 1935: Dinty Moore beef stew is introduced.

1937: 1937: SPAM luncheon meat is introduced.

1938: In 1938, Jay C. Hormel introduced the "Joint Savings Plan" which allowed employees to share in the profits of the company.

1941: SPAM, Hormel's canned spiced ham and ground pork product, became the staple of United States servicemen throughout the world; in 1941 Hormel was producing 15 million cans a week, and the government was distributing it under the lend-lease program.

1942: By 1942, George and Jay established The Hormel Foundation to act as trustees of the family trusts.

1945: By 1945 Hormel was selling 65 percent of its total production to the United States Government.

1946: In 1946 the company financed a $2.25 million sewage system that it shared with the Austin community. When George Hormel died in 1946, Jay Hormel took his place as chairman of the board of directors and H. H. Corey became Hormel's third president.

1947: In addition, Hormel made a concerted effort to make better use of its raw material, and in 1947 the company began to produce gelatin from pork skins.

1949: Mary Kitchen Roast Beef Hash, Corned Beef Hash, and Spaghetti and Beef in Sauce were first offered in 1949.

1954: In 1954 Jay Hormel died, and Corey assumed his chair on the board of directors, while R. F. Gray succeeded Corey as president.

1959: Overfamiliarity bred substantial contempt and ridicule during and after the war, but the product demonstrated uncanny resilience: by 1959, Hormel had sold over 1 billion cans of SPAM. In 1959, Hormel was the first meatpacker to receive the Seal of Approval of the American Humane Society for its practice of anesthetizing animals before slaughter.

1960: In 1960 the company introduced its "Famous Foods of the World" line.

1963: The largest success of the decade, however, was the Hormel Cure 81 Ham, a skinless, boneless, cured ham with the shank removed; it debuted in 1963.

1965: Hormel added several more slaughtering, processing, and packing facilities throughout the country, and in 1965 it added a new 75,000-square-foot, automated sausage manufacturing building to its Austin plant.

1982: 1982: A $100 million, state-of-the-art manufacturing plant opens in Austin.

1983: Under this plan, in 1983 Hormel employees received more than $4 million. Wilson Food Company declared bankruptcy in 1983, allowing them to cut wages from $10.69 to $6.50 and significantly reduce benefits.

1984: In 1984, Hormel introduced the Frank 'n Stuff brand of stuffed hot dogs.

1985: 1985-86:A bitter, nationally publicized strike takes place at the Austin plant.

1986: In 1986, Hormel Foods acquired Jennie-O Foods and also began an exclusive licensing arrangement to produce Chi-Chi's brand products.

1988: The company added to their poultry offerings by purchasing Chicken by George, created by former Miss America Phyllis George, in 1988.

1990: mirabile, lisa, ed. international directory of company histories. detroit: st. james press, 1990.

1991: In 1991 Hormel celebrated 100 years in business. Known until 1991 as George A. Hormel & Co., the company is still headquartered in the town of its birth, Austin, Minnesota, which is also home to Hormel's flagship plant and research and development division.

1992: Hormel's continuing move away from meatpacking and toward value-added food production was highlighted by the 1992 appointment of Joel W. Johnson as president. In 1992 the company introduced Light & Lean 97 hot dogs, which were 97 percent fat free and were praised for their taste by the likes of Eaters Digest, a consumer magazine. In 1992 the House of Tsang and Oriental Deli brands were acquired, with Dubuque meats and Herb-Ox instant broths and seasonings added the following year.

1993: In 1993 SPAM maintained a stunning 80 percent market share of its sales category. Since the company was expanding to embrace many different types of foods, a decision was made to change its name to Hormel Foods Corporation in 1993. The company was founded as George A. Hormel & Company in Austin, Minnesota by George A. Hormel in 1891. It changed its name to Hormel Foods in 1993.

1994: Another acquisition--that of American Institutional Products, Inc. (AIP) in 1994--brought Hormel a presence in the distribution of food products to hospitals, nursing homes, and other healthcare facilities. Meanwhile, in fiscal 1994, Hormel Foods exceeded the $3 billion revenue level for the first time. In 1994 the company teamed up with Beijing Agriculture Industry and Commerce to establish Beijing Hormel Foods Company Ltd. in China.

1995: In 1995 alone, the company spent $97.2 million in capital additions and improvements, the most ever in company history. The company purchased Melting Pot Foods in 1995 to further increase its ethnic foods market share.

1996: All of these 1996 activities expanded Hormel's already extensive presence in the ethnic foods category. By 1996, the company's decision to repurchase as many as 5 million shares of Hormel stock was destined to further increase the foundation's Hormel holdings, possibly setting the stage for future litigation.

1997: In the fall of 1997, Hormel acquired Heartland Foods Co., which operated a 117,000-square-foot plant in Marshall, Minnesota. In fiscal 1997 meat products accounted for 54 percent of Hormel's total sales, while prepared foods brought in about 27 percent of total revenue.

1998: "hormel meat products hit market." asiainfo daily news, 6 january 1998. "corporate profile." austin, mn: hormel foods corp., 10 may 1998. available at http://www.hormel.com/hormel/company.nsf/lkdocuments/b1?opendocument. The Heartland acquisition helped boost Jennie-O into position as the top turkey processor in the United States, with production of 855 million pounds of turkey in 1998.

1999: The 9.5 percent increase over the previous year was fueled in part by a significant increase in purchases of nonperishable products, including SPAM, during the final months of 1999 as nervous consumers stocked up in advance of impending Y2K problems that never materialized.

2000: Based in Barron, Wisconsin, the Turkey Store processed about 375 million pounds of turkey annually and had revenues of $309 million for the year ending in February 2000. By fiscal 2000, Hormel Foods had achieved record net sales of $3.68 billion.

2001: Hormel's largest deal, however--in fact the largest in company history--was the purchase of Jerome Foods, Inc., which did business as the Turkey Store Company, in February 2001 for $334.4 million. During fiscal 2001, JOTS accounted for 20 percent of overall Hormel Foods revenues and 22 percent of operating profits. The Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota, was opened in 2001.

2002: In April 2002 Hormel and the Excel Corporation subsidiary of Cargill, Incorporated created Precept Foods, LLC, a joint venture that would market fresh, prepackaged beef and pork under the Hormel Always Tender brand. In December 2002 Hormel acquired Diamond Crystal Brands from Imperial Sugar for $115 million in stock.

2006: According to Triple Pundit, Hormel Foods began CSR reporting in 2006.

2008: In September 2008, animal rights organization PETA released a video recorded over the course of three months showing workers at a pig factory farm in Iowa abusing pigs.

2009: In 2009 Hormel and Herdez del Fuerte created the joint venture MegaMex Foods to market and distribute Mexican food in the United States.

2011: In 2011, Hormel Foods announced a two-for-one stock split.

2013: In 2013, Hormel Foods purchased Skippy—the best-selling brand of peanut butter in China and the second-best-selling brand in the world—from Unilever for $700 million; the sale included Skippy's American and Chinese factories.

2015: In May 2015, Hormel revealed it would acquire meat processing firm Applegate Farms for around $775 million, expanding its range of meat products. In 2015, the Hormel Health Labs division of Hormel Foods launched its Hormel Vital Cuisine line of packaged ready to eat meals, nutrition shakes and whey protein powders geared towards cancer patients and made available for home delivery.

2016: Also in 2016, Hormel acquired the nut butter producer Justin's for 280 million.

2017: In October 2017, Hormel announced it would acquire deli meat company Columbus Manufacturing for $850 million. In 2017, Hormel sold Clougherty Packing, owner of the Farmer John and Saag's brands, to Smithfield Foods.

2019: In September 2019, Hormel Foods announced that they had achieved their non-renewable energy use reduction goal a year ahead of schedule. Also in September 2019, the company launched a vegetarian meat alternative called Happy Little Plants for foodservice and retail customers.

2020: On September 18, 2020, Hormel Foods hosted the world's largest virtual pizza party, when more than 3,000 people joined a Zoom-hosted pizza party. In October 2020, Hormel launched a bacon scented protective mask giveaway charity promotion.

2021: In February 2021, Kraft Heinz announced it would be selling its Planters and its other nuts businesses to Hormel for $3.35 billion.

Hormel Foods is a leading branded food company with a focus on profitable growth. Inspired by our founder's charge to “originate, don't imitate,” we market a balanced portfolio of highly differentiated quality products.