who owns smithfield meats

Smithfield Meats (more commonly known as Smithfield Foods) is owned by WH Group, a large multinational meat company based in China.

Who owns Smithfield Meats?

• Smithfield Foods, Inc. is a major U.S.-based pork producer headquartered in Smithfield, Virginia.

• In 2013, it was purchased outright by WH Group (formerly Shuanghui International), a Chinese meat and food processing conglomerate, in a deal worth about 4.7 billion dollars.

• Since that acquisition, Smithfield Foods has operated as a subsidiary of WH Group and is widely described as a Chinese-owned pork producer.

A bit of backstory

• Smithfield started in 1936 as a local meatpacking company and grew into one of the world’s largest pig and pork producers.

• The sale to WH Group was notable as one of the largest Chinese acquisitions of an American company and drew political and media attention, especially around food security and foreign ownership of U.S. agriculture.

Why this is a trending topic

• Discussions about “who owns Smithfield Meats” often touch on broader debates about Chinese investment in U.S. companies, rural economies, and environmental and animal welfare concerns around large-scale pork production.

• Online forums and social media frequently reference the WH Group ownership when talking about Smithfield plant incidents, local community impacts, or state-level agricultural regulations.

In short, when people ask “who owns Smithfield Meats,” the current answer is: it is a U.S.-based company that has been under Chinese corporate ownership (via WH Group) since 2013.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.