Seaboard Corporation
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electrical power | |
Number of employees | 11,800[1] (2017) |
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Subsidiaries | Seaboard Foods, Seaboard Marine, Seaboard Overseas & Trading Group (SOTG), Tabacal Agroindustria, Transcontinental Capital Corporation, Ltd.(TCCB), Mount Dora Farms, and 50% non-controlling interest in Butterball, LLC |
Website | www |
Seaboard Corporation is a diverse
Seaboard Corporation's subsidiaries and affiliates employ more than 23,000 people in more than 45 different countries, mostly in the U.S.,
History
Seaboard's history is deeply tied to grain. Otto Bresky purchased his first flour mill in Atchison, Kansas, in 1918. During the next 40 years he would purchase additional flour mills, mostly in Kansas, under the name Rodney Milling.
In 1959 the company went public through a merger with Hathaway Industries, Inc., a
The newly formed company began concentrating on milling operations closer to major metropolitan areas along the East Coast and in the Southeast. Beginning in the early 1960s Seaboard built five U.S. mills over the course of a 14-year period. The company's first investment outside the U.S. was the joint acquisition of a flour mill in Ecuador. Seaboard later constructed mills in Sierra Leone, Guyana, Liberia and Nigeria.
When Otto Bresky retired as Seaboard's chairman and member of the board of directors in 1973, his son H. Harry Bresky took his place. After serving in WWII, Harry joined his father in the milling business and assumed the title of president in 1967, then later CEO. Seaboard built its current corporate headquarters in Merriam, Kansas in 1980.
In 1982 Seaboard sold its domestic flour milling division to
Seaboard Marine, Ltd. was formed in 1983 to provide
Also during the decade of the ‘80s, Seaboard purchased two baking companies in Puerto Rico and ventured into
Transcontinental Capital Corporation, Ltd. formed in 1989 with the purpose of supplying electrical power to the Dominican Republic. The new subsidiary was the first independent power producer in the Dominican Republic.
In 1990, Seaboard Corporation began pork production and processing. The company's pork division, Seaboard Foods, acquired a pork processing plant in Albert Lea, Minnesota. As it had done with poultry, Seaboard quickly began to invest in processing pork, constructing its first feeder pig facility and feed mill in Northeast Colorado in 1991. In 1992 Seaboard began construction on a state of the art pork processing facility in Guymon, Oklahoma. To support the Guymon facility, Seaboard constructed feed mills in Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas. Guymon eventually opened in 1996. The $110 million plant had the capacity to process over four million hogs annually, employing more than 1,000 workers, utilizing two shifts. The Minnesota pork processing plant closed in 1994.[4]
That same year, in 1996, Seaboard acquired an interest in Tabacal Agroindustria, an
Seaboard added Daily's® Premium Meats, a bacon processor with two processing plants in
H. Harry Bresky retired in July 2006, but remained chairman of the board until his death in March 2007. Steven J. Bresky, his son, then served as Seaboard Corporation's president and CEO and its director and chairman of the board until his death in 2020.[6]
Seaboard once again entered the poultry business with the acquisition of half ownership in Butterball, LLC in 2010.
With continued expansion in commodities trading, alcohol
In 2018, Seaboard acquired the West-African agri-food group Mimran, increasing its flour and feed milling capacity with approximately 15 percent to over 24,000 metric tons per day.[7]
Divisions
Pork
Seaboard was a pioneer in the vertical integration of the U.S. pork industry. Seaboard Foods, its Pork Division, is able to efficiently control pork production across the entire life cycle of the hog. Seaboard Foods hog production facilities in Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Iowa and Texas consist of genetic and commercial breeding,
Since 2008 Seaboard Foods has been producing
Seaboard bought a defunct ethanol plant in Hugoton Kansas and converted it to a renewable diesel plant.
Other ventures include renewable natural gas made from biogas.
In 2009 Seaboard Foods opened, Seaboard Foods de México, to produce fresh boneless hams, using mostly bone-in hams from Guymon's U.S. facility.
Commodity trading and milling
Managed under the name Seaboard Overseas and Trading Group (SOTG), the Commodity Trading and Milling segment sources, transports, and markets
SOTG operates facilities in 23 countries. With ten trade offices in nine countries, Seaboard traded more than 8 million tons of agricultural products into approximately 100 countries in 2013.
Marine
The Marine segment provides cargo shipping services mostly between the United States and 26 countries in the Caribbean Basin, Central and South America. Seaboard Marine's primary office is in Miami, but also operates out of the Port of Houston, Brooklyn, New York and New Orleans. The division's fleet consists of 30 vessels and over 60,000 dry, refrigerated, specialized containers and related equipment. It uses a network of offices and agents with full service capabilities to allow truck or rail transport to and from various U.S. ports.
Sugar
Tabacal Agroindustria in Argentina has an annual capacity to produce approximately 250,000 metric tons of sugar and approximately 15 million gallons of alcohol. The mill is located in the Salta Province of Argentina, with administrative offices in Buenos Aires.
This segment also owns a 51
Power
Seaboard's Transcontinental Capital Corporation (TCC) electric power generating facility is in the Dominican Republic. Using a system of
Other
With a 50% acquisition of Butterball, LLC, Seaboard added a turkey segment to its portfolio in 2010.[8] Butterball is the largest vertically integrated producer, processor and marketer of branded and non-branded turkey and other products. Butterball produces approximately one billion pounds of turkey each year.
Through Mount Dora Farms, Seaboard processes jalapeño peppers at its plant in Honduras.
Corporate
Each of Seaboard Corporation's segments is separately managed, and each was started or acquired independent of the other segments. Most of the sales and costs of Seaboard's segments are significantly influenced by worldwide fluctuations in commodity prices and changes in foreign and political conditions.
As of September 27, 2014, Seaboard Foods Pork segment sold to Triumph Foods LLC a 50% interest in Daily's Premium Meats, its processed meats division.[9]
Awards
Seaboard Foods received the 2014 Achievement Award from NGVAmerica for Outstanding CNG Fleet & Station Program. NGVAmerica is the national organization driving the use of natural gas.[10]
For seven consecutive years, Seaboard Marine has been recognized by the Jamaican Exporters Association (JEA) for its growth and development of Jamaica's export sector. The JEA is a non-government members association.[11]
In August 2014, Seaboard Marine was awarded a
Criticism
Corporate welfare
In 1998,
Land misappropriation
In 1996, Seaboard bought the sugar plantation and refinery San Martin de Tabacal, in Salta, Argentina, and immediately fired 6,000 workers. Many of them were members of the Ava
Animal cruelty
In January 2012, an undercover exposé of Seaboard pig operations[16] revealed numerous severe welfare concerns including[17] sanitation, abandonment of dead or medically suffering animals, violent abuse, and callous indifference to pain.
Following the investigation, Seaboard faced
References
- ^ "Seaboard". Fortune. Retrieved 2018-12-31.
- ^ Cover story: Who in the world is Seaboard? Kansas City Business Journal (subscription required)
- ^ "Seaboard". Fortune. Retrieved 2018-12-31.
- ^ a b "Seaboard Corp | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 27 May 2023.
- ^ Sosland, Josh (March 13, 2007). "Harry Bresky, retired chairman of Seaboard Corp., dies". Food Business News.
- ^ "Seaboard Chairman Bresky Passes Away".
- ^ "Seaboard to acquire West African Group Mimran". Miller Magazine. Retrieved 2019-11-04.
- ^ La Monica, Paul R. (November 26, 2014). "The $3500 Butterball turkey stock". CNN Money.
- ^ "Triumph Foods Purchased A 50 Percent Ownership in Daily's Premium Meats". 26 September 2014.
- ^ "NGVAmerica honors recipients of the 2014 NGVAmerica Award". Retrieved 27 May 2023.
- ^ "Seaboard Marine Jamaica Wins 7th Consecutive JEA Award". 8 July 2014.
- ^ "Seaboard Marine Wins Third Consecutive Quest For Quality Award". 25 August 2014.
- ^ Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (November 30, 1998). "The Empire of the Pigs". Time Magazine. Archived from the original on October 23, 2006.
- ^ "Worcester Global Action Network".
- ^ "Juez ordena sentencia favorable a comunidad guaraní (Spanish)". Archived from the original on 2008-10-28.
- ^ "Newsroom". newsroom.humanesociety.org. Retrieved 27 May 2023.
- ^ "HSUS Report: Undercover Exposés at Two of the Nation's Largest Pork Producers" (PDF). Retrieved 27 May 2023.
- ^ "Seaboard Corporation Pig Treatment Challenged By Humane Society Investigation". HuffPost. February 2012.