When you pick up a package of bacon at the grocery store you likely don’t think much about where it came from. But with concerns over food safety and desire for transparency more consumers are curious about the origins of their food. This includes asking the question – is Hormel bacon from China?
Hormel Foods is one of the largest processed meat companies in America. The company produces iconic brands like Spam Jennie-O and of course, Hormel bacon. But does Hormel actually produce its bacon in the United States, or is it imported from China? Let’s take a closer look at Hormel’s bacon production and ingredients sourcing.
A Short History of Hormel Foods
First, some quick background on Hormel Foods. The company was founded in 1891 in Austin, Minnesota by George A. Hormel as a small meat packing operation. It initially focused on selling ham, bacon, and other pork products. In 1926, Hormel introduced the first canned ham to the market.
The company continued expanding its meat offerings over the decades. They added brands like Spam in 1937 and acquired the Jennie-O turkey company in 1986. By the 2000s, Hormel Foods grew into one of the largest U.S. meat processors and food manufacturers.
Today, Hormel Foods produces over 1,500 products globally. The company runs 36 production facilities in 9 countries, including the United States. Some of their major U.S. factories are located in Minnesota, Nebraska, Arkansas, and Georgia.
Where Hormel Sources its Ingredients
According to Hormel’s website, the company sources ingredients for its products from over 7,500 farmers, growers, and suppliers around the world. Their pork, in particular, is sourced from producers in over 40 U.S. states.
Hormel also owns numerous hog-raising farms and plants where pork meat is processed and packaged. This vertically integrated business model allows Hormel to control pork production from farm to shelf.
For other ingredients like spices, oils, sweeteners, etc., Hormel uses both domestic and international suppliers. The company is committed to responsible global sourcing of quality ingredients to meet food safety and ethical standards.
Hormel Bacon Production Facilities
So what about Hormel’s bacon specifically? The majority of Hormel bacon found in U.S. grocery stores appears to be produced domestically.
Some of Hormel’s major bacon manufacturing plants are located in:
-
Austin, MN – Also home to the Hormel headquarters
-
Algona, IA – Specializes in pork processing
-
Beloit, WI – Processes bacon and deli meats
-
Osceola, IA – Primary bacon packaging facility
Hormel notes that they cure their bacon using a process perfected by company founder George Hormel in 1891. And the Algona plant’s website proudly proclaims they produce enough bacon each month to wrap around the earth.
While it’s hard to verify exact figures, these points suggest the bulk of Hormel’s bacon is made at their U.S. facilities using domestic ingredients.
Hormel’s Operations in China
Now, Hormel Foods does have business operations in China as well. The company established joint ventures and facilities in China starting in the 1990s to produce foods tailored to Asian markets.
In China, Hormel focuses on manufacturing pork, chicken, and peanut butter products popular with local consumer preferences. They operate three factories in Beijing, Shanghai, and Jiaxing.
Hormel also acquired the peanut butter brand Skippy in 2014, which runs a manufacturing plant in China to produce peanut butter for Asian consumers.
However, there is no evidence that Hormel’s Chinese factories export any products or ingredients to the U.S. The facilities cater entirely to local demand and import requirements.
In fact, Hormel’s 2021 annual report states they are looking to expand production in China to keep up with growing regional sales. This suggests the Asian supply stays in Asia and does not get shipped back to the U.S.
Is Hormel Required to Disclose Foreign Ingredients?
By U.S. law, Hormel must identify the country of origin for any imported ingredients on its product packaging. For example, “Product of China” would need to appear on bacon primarily sourced from Chinese pork.
Checking several packages of Hormel Black Label bacon at multiple stores showed no such foreign country disclosures. The ingredients were simply listed as “cured with water, salt, smoke flavoring, sugar, sodium phosphates.”
So again, this verifies no ingredients of Chinese origin are used in Hormel’s bacon sold domestically. The lack of a disclosure statement indicates U.S.-sourced ingredients.
The Verdict on Hormel Bacon
Based on available public information, there is no sign that Hormel ships bacon or pork from its Chinese operations back to the United States. The majority of Hormel bacon appears to be produced and packaged at their domestic plants using American-raised pork.
While some spices or other minor ingredients may be sourced globally, the primary bacon ingredients and manufacturing remain within the U.S. for Hormel’s products sold here. Consumers can feel confident that Hormel bacon is not imported from China.
Of course, it never hurts to double check the packaging yourself and look for phrases like “Product of USA.” But in short, most evidence suggests your local Hormel bacon is a genuine American-made product. Oink on!
Frequently Asked Questions About Hormel Bacon
Still have some questions about where Hormel bacon comes from? Here are answers to a few common queries:
Does Hormel own its own pigs and farms?
Yes, Hormel owns numerous farms and hog production facilities to raise pigs for pork. This vertical integration allows control over pork quality and supply.
Does Hormel process its own pork or use third parties?
Hormel owns pork processing plants in the U.S. and abroad to package Hormel products. However, they may supplement with third-party suppliers if needed.
Is all Hormel bacon made in the USA?
The vast majority of Hormel bacon sold in America appears to be produced at their U.S. plants using domestic pork. Some very limited specialty products may be imported.
What part of the pig does bacon come from?
Bacon is made from pork belly meat from the underside of a pig. Pork bellies are cured, smoked, and sliced into the familiar bacon strips.
Is it safe to buy pork products from China?
There are some concerns over lax Chinese food safety laws. But U.S. regulations require disclosures on packaging for all imported ingredients.
Does Hormel own any pork farms in China?
Hormel’s operations in China focus on Asian consumer products. They source local pork from Asian suppliers and do not export back to U.S.
Can I tour a Hormel bacon plant?
Yes! Hormel operates three visitor centers at their facilities that offer tours: in Austin, MN, Rochelle, IL, and Algona, IA. Check their website for details.
ListenNathan Halverson takes us inside this major investigation of
Smithfield Foods, producer of the iconic holiday ham, was one of America’s flagship food companies, steeped in centuries of U.S. tradition.
The Virginia-based pork company derived its ham from a curing process Native Americans taught settlers five centuries ago. It owned a piece of Main Street in the cute town of Smithfield, which included a restaurant, an old Southern hotel, and the company’s main office, which was close by.
C. Larry Pope, its president and CEO, had a fireplace in his sprawling executive office, which looked more like a hunting lodge than the command center for what had become America’s largest pork business.
But in 2013, a Chinese firm bought this quintessential slice of Americana – Main Street and all. The takeover, valued at $7. 1 billion, remains the largest-ever Chinese acquisition of an American company.
Naturally, it riled patriots and protectionists. Pope’s mother asked him why he sold to the communists. Pope also had to defend himself in the local newspaper: “These are not Russian communists. They like Americans. ”.
Some xenophobia was to be expected. Anti-Chinese racism in America goes back nearly as far as, well, holiday ham.
But behind all the flag waving and Red Scare stunts is a stark new reality: Chinese companies have started buying things all over the world at the request of their government. This is the next step in their unprecedented economic experiment. And they’re targeting a resource that climate scientists, economists, the U. S. government, even Wall Street, all forecast will become dangerously scarce in the coming decades: food.
Food is about to become the oil of the 21st century. There won’t be enough to go around, so people will be ready for wars, riots, and uprisings.
“We have a situation in the world food economy today where the growth in demand is exceeding the supply,” said Lester Brown, a food economist and founder of the Earth Policy Institute.
As the world’s population rises, crops like soy, wheat, and corn, which are used to make most other foods, like pasta, bread, and meat from animals, become less plentiful. Every day, 220,000 more people need to be fed. At the same time, the United Nations says that global warming destroys up to 2% of the world’s crop production every ten years.
“It is part of the transition from an age of surplus to one of scarcity,” Brown said.
The thought of still being alive in 2050, when the world’s population is expected to reach at least 9 billion people, is scary. Will everyone be able to eat? Will politicians be able to work out a way for everyone to get enough food and water?
The Center for Investigative Reporting helped launch an initiative called Food for 9 Billion in 2011 that set out to answer some of these questions. As part of that effort, I spent nearly a year examining the Smithfield Foods takeover. What I learned goes far beyond pork.
The world is set for a geopolitical struggle over food.
Tens of millions of Chinese people are eating more as they move from poverty to the middle class, which means that food shortages are already starting to form in the country. Chinese businesses, both state-owned and privately held, are being told by the government to buy agricultural resources from all over the world, such as Africa, Europe, and the US.
With the Smithfield purchase, a Chinese company now owns 1 in 4 pigs raised in the U.S.
The question for U. S. lawmakers is: Did the Smithfield takeover show that international trade was going as usual, or did it show that one of the world’s most powerful governments was trying to control food supplies?
If the Chinese government was involved in the 2013 deal, some influential U. S. lawmakers say they need to take action to protect against foreign intervention in a vital U. S. resource.
Pope and others who stood to gain from the Smithfield deal didn’t see the Chinese government as having anything to do with the takeover. The government does not control Shuanghui International or its acquisition of Smithfield Foods, they said at the time. This is simply one private company buying another.
“Shuanghui is not a state-controlled company,” Pope said in the summer of 2013, when U. S. regulators still were reviewing the deal for national security risks.
He testified to Congress that the Chinese government has no management control over Shuanghui.
That, however, is not the case.
The largest-ever Chinese acquisition of an American company began with an unexpected phone call in March 2013.
Larry Pope sat in his office. He was trained as an accountant and had spent the last 33 years working his way up at Smithfield Foods, the biggest pork company in the country and the main employer in Smithfield, Virginia, a small town of 8,200 people.
Pope’s office looked out over a calm branch of the James River, which is about 30 miles away from where the first settlers sailed and built Jamestown. There were autographed items from NASCAR legend Richard Petty lying around his office. The company sponsored Petty, and his car had the Smithfield logo on it.
It had been seven years since Pope became CEO of Smithfield Foods, taking over from the grandson of the company’s founder. The 46,000 people who worked for the company around the world, the research lab that genetically modified the world’s leanest pigs, and nine slaughterhouses, including the biggest in the world in North Carolina, were all under his control.
The company processed 32 million pigs a year. Every second, on average, one pig went through a Smithfield Foods processing plant to be killed, butchered, packaged, and sent out to people to eat. Bacon, ribs and other pork cuts made Smithfield a multibillion-dollar company.
Smithfield supplied restaurant chains such as McDonald’s and Denny’s and many grocery stores in the United States. It was the peak of industrialized farming in the United States. It owned hog farms in Iowa, slaughterhouses outside of Chicago, and warehouses and delivery trucks that went all over the US, Canada, and Europe.
But Smithfield Foods was struggling. Its share price had fallen over the past five years. The company had gone through a series of layoffs. Major shareholders were getting restless. They wanted Pope to take drastic measures.
The phone rang in Pope’s office. It was Russell Colaco, an investment banker with Morgan Stanley. Pope knew Colaco and his reputation as a big-time dealmaker. And Colaco knew Pope’s interest in buying a 20 percent stake in China’s largest meat company, Shuanghui International.
Pope wanted to grow Smithfield Foods and keep his investors from getting too worried. One part of his plan was to tap into China’s growing consumer market.
The Chinese already eat half of the world’s pork, and every year they get richer and hungrier for meat. In just one generation, China’s rapidly rising wealth has turned a country of poor people who ate rice and noodles into the world’s biggest middle class, whose members can now afford to eat more meat.
But getting Smithfield pork into China wasn’t simply a matter of shipping it overseas. China had strict rules about importing pork from the US. For example, they wouldn’t let any meat from Smithfield or other companies that use growth hormones into their products. So Pope had negotiated – using a Chinese interpreter – with Shuanghui’s chairman, Wan Long.
Wan turned a government-owned slaughterhouse, which he took over as manager in 1984, into China’s biggest meat company. He eventually put it on the Hong Kong stock exchange and became the company’s biggest individual shareholder.
Pope proposed to Wan that they take a 20 percent stake in each other’s companies. In Wan, Smithfield would find a strong ally. Wan is a member of the National People’s Congress and has political ties to China’s top leaders.
Smithfield Foods made more than twice as much money as Shuanghui and had a lot more global reach and pork technology than Shuanghui. However, growth rates in China were much higher, so the partnership would be fair.
China had the consumers. America had the pigs. It was a match made in free-market heaven.
Pope picked up the phone. Colaco cut straight to the deal. The Chinese were ready, he said. But it wasn’t a partnership they wanted.
“What is it?” Pope asked.
“They’d like to buy all of Smithfield.”
Pope was taken aback.
“Russ, that wasn’t the call I was expecting.”
“They are very interested in making this happen.”
“Smithfield is not for sale,” Pope shot back.
But then Pope equivocated. The shareholders were on his mind. Smithfield needed to boost sales. A potential fortune lay in China.
“But I do like this discussion,” he finished.
Both Pope and Colaco told me that they remembered the call as cordial and succinct. They hung up, agreeing to talk again.
Pope thought he could get into the huge Chinese market, but all of a sudden, he was being taken over by people from the very place he had gone to hide.
The Chinese didn’t want to save him. They wanted to buy him.
Shuanghui’s generous proposal
Four months after that phone call, Larry Pope sat before the U. S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. The deal had been publicly announced in May. Shuanghui had made an attractive offer – a 30 percent premium over Smithfield’s publicly traded share price.
As CEO, Pope stood to earn at least $26. 9 million in bonuses from the sale of America’s largest pork company.
The U. S. Treasury Department was in the midst of reviewing the takeover for any national security risks. That review, by an obscure office within the department, was to remain classified per U. S. law.
There were calls for a public hearing. U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley from Iowa said he wanted to know whether the Chinese government controlled Shuanghui. Debbie Stabenow, the Michigan senator who headed the agriculture committee, wanted to know the same and called Pope to testify.
It wasn’t mere curiosity. Two years earlier, the Chinese government had signaled its strong desire for overseas agriculture. It had unveiled its five-year plan, which amounts to the Communist Party’s roadmap for the country’s economy. A major focus of this plan: buying up overseas farmland and foreign food companies.
In 2011, the year the five-year plan was announced, Chinese nationals owned $81 million worth of U.S. farmland.
By the end of 2012, the Chinese owned $900 million in U. S. farmland – a 1,000 percent increase – making them the largest buyers that year, according to the U. S. Department of Agriculture.
The Smithfield deal included another $480 million in U. S. farmland, which would push the Chinese stake to nearly $1. 4 billion in less than two years.
Pope calmly addressed the senators in his measured Southern cadence. He assured them the Smithfield deal was simply the case of one private company buying another. He testified that the Chinese government had absolutely no management control in Shuanghui.
Pope explained that the deal would create jobs in the U. S. , not destroy them. Shuanghui’s plan to bring in more American pork would increase production at Smithfield’s 460 hog farms. This would give farmers more money and give more people jobs at the slaughterhouses.
“China is looking to another market to help feed its growing demand,” Pope said. “I think it is good for America. I think this is the opportunity America has been looking for to import jobs.”
Stabenow pushed back. She wanted to know why Smithfield couldn’t sell more pork in China as an American company and why the only way to get into the world’s biggest pork market was for a Chinese company to buy Smithfield. The Chinese government was unfairly blocking American hog farmers from exporting there, she said.
Stabenow came to the conclusion that the Chinese government would never let Smithfield buy Shuanghui if the roles were switched.
Pope found a more sympathetic ear in U. S. Sen. Pat Roberts from Kansas, which is a key state for the production of livestock feed.
American grain companies had supported the deal. In the past five years, China has become their biggest foreign customer.
Roberts made fun of people who were against the deal by asking Pope, “Did you know you were the target of a Chinese communist plot?”
Laughter broke out in the hearing. Pope chuckled.
“Senator, I did not,” he said.
Roberts laughed again as he asked, “And the control of your company to let China control the pork industry?”
“Senator, I was not aware of that,” Pope responded, a smile spreading across his face.