Meat + Poultry - May 2008 - 16

BUSINESS NOTES
Senior management
changes made at
Smithfield
Smithfield Foods Inc. named George
Richter president and CEO of its pork
group, a newly created position. The
presidents of Smithfield Foods' five
pork processing companies will report to him.
A 34-year veteran of the pork industry, Richter has spent his entire career with Farmland Foods Inc. He has
served as president of Farmland Foods
since Smithfield acquired the company

U.S.Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents examine a truck leaving the Pilgrim's Pride
poultry plant in Batesville, Ark., after a 6:00 a.m. raid Wednesday, April 16, 2008. Nearly 300
people were arrested in immigration and identity theft raids at Pilgrim's Pride poultry plants in
five states. (AP Photo/Batesville Guard, Tony McGuffey)

Immigration raids at poultry plants
net hundreds
Federal agents said their case for a series of workplace raids April 16 in five states
was strengthened by identity theft victims who recounted stories of plummeting
credit scores and medical benefits being denied.
Federal authorities conducted the sweeps and arrested hundreds of workers
at Pilgrim's Pride Corp. chicken plants on charges of identity theft, document
fraud and immigration violations. Authorities said agents investigating a scheme
to provide documents for illegal immigrant workers had tracked down several
of the identity theft victims.
Although the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said nearly
300 people were arrested, officials at Pilgrim's Pride said about 400 hourly, nonmanagement employees were taken into custody. Pilgrim's Pride worked with
ICE agents ahead of the operation, company spokesman Ray Atkinson said. It
also reported suspicion of identity theft at an Arkansas plant.
"We have terminated all of the employees who were taken into custody and
will terminate any employee who is found to have engaged in similar misconduct," Atkinson said. "We are investigating these allegations further."
The sweeps stemmed from a larger investigation into identity theft and document fraud at Pilgrim's Pride, ICE said. That probe led to the arrests of twodozen people from the company's Mount Pleasant plant.
No criminal or civil charges have been filed against Pilgrim's Pride.
16

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May 2008

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in October 2003. Previously, he was
president of the pork division of Farmland Industries.
James Sbarro will assume Richter's
former role as president of Farmland.
Sbarro has 25 years of experience in
the food industry and has been senior
vice president of sales, marketing, research and development at Farmland
since 1999.
Tim Schellpeper, senior vice president of operations at Farmland, will
become president of Smithfield Packing Company. A 21-year veteran of the
pork industry, Schellpeper has been
with Farmland for 17 years.
Joseph Luter IV, president of Smithfield Packing Company, will become
executive vice president of Smithfield
Foods and will concentrate on sales
and marketing. Luter has served in several positions within Smithfield Foods
since 1993.
"I am very pleased with these changes, for they strengthen our overall management team. In addition, this positions
us to better manage our large domestic base of business," said Larry Pope,
Smithfield Foods president and CEO.
"These managers will help in the coordination of the pork subsidiaries to better serve our continually-growing retail
and foodservice customers. There are
big opportunities across the organization to improve our operations and financial performance."

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Meat + Poultry - May 2008

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