Hormel Foods history

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: The company is incorporated.

Hormel acquired his first patent in 1903 with Dairy Brand and began to open distribution centers.

Between 1905 and the end of World War I, exports grew to constitute about a third of the company's yearly volume.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

1935: Dinty Moore beef stew is introduced.

1937: SPAM luncheon meat is introduced.

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

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.

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

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

In 1946 the company financed a $2.25 million sewage system that it shared with the Austin community.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Under this plan, in 1983 Hormel employees received more than $4 million.

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

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

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

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

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

In 1991 Hormel celebrated 100 years in business.

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 1993 SPAM maintained a stunning 80 percent market share of its sales category.

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.

In 1995 alone, the company spent $97.2 million in capital additions and improvements, the most ever in company history.

All of these 1996 activities expanded Hormel's already extensive presence in the ethnic foods category.

In the fall of 1997, Hormel acquired Heartland Foods Co., which operated a 117,000-square-foot plant in Marshall, Minnesota.

"hormel meat products hit market." asiainfo daily news, 6 january 1998.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

In May 2015, Hormel revealed it would acquire meat processing firm Applegate Farms for around $775 million, expanding its range of meat products.

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

In October 2017, Hormel announced it would acquire deli meat company Columbus Manufacturing for $850 million.

In September 2019, Hormel Foods announced that they had achieved their non-renewable energy use reduction goal a year ahead of schedule.

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.