Seaboard Corporation

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, farrowing, nursery and finishing buildings. They produce more than 5 million hogs annually. Hogs processed at Seaboard's main plant in Guymon, Oklahoma are primarily Seaboard Foods raised hogs. At full capacity, the facility processes approximately 20,000 hogs per day, selling to further processors, food service operators, grocery stores, distributors, export and retail outlets. The Pork segment is mainly a U.S. business, with some export to Japan, Mexico, Russia, Korea and other foreign markets. In 2013 Seaboard was ranked #2 in pork production and #4 in processing in the U.S. (including Triumph Foods volume).

Since 2008 Seaboard Foods has been producing biodiesel from the animal by-products of Guymon's processing plant. High Plains Bioenergy, a wholly owned subsidiary of Seaboard Foods, produces more than 30 million gallons annually. High Plains Bioenergy is located next to the Guymon, Oklahoma, processing plant and also has the capabilities to produce vegetable oil.

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.

Managed under the name Seaboard Overseas and Trading Group (SOTG), the Commodity Trading and Milling segment sources, transports, and markets wheat, corn, soybean meal, and other commodities. These commodities are purchased worldwide, with primary destinations in Africa, South America and the Caribbean.

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.

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.

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 megawatt cogeneration power plant. The plant is fueled by the burning of sugarcane by-products during harvest season. It also sells dehydrated alcohol to certain oil companies under an Argentine government bio-ethanol program.

Seaboard's Transcontinental Capital Corporation (TCC) electric power generating facility is in the Dominican Republic. Using a system of diesel engines mounted on floating barges, TCC generates a combined rated capacity of approximately 178 megawatts. As an independent power producer, Seaboard generates electricity for the local power grid, selling mainly to government-owned distribution companies.

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.

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 Logistics Management magazine 2014 Quest for Quality Award in Ocean Carriers for the third consecutive year. Logistic Management's over 7,000 readers chose top performers in various transportation sectors.[12]

In 1998, Time magazine published "The Empire of the Pigs" by investigative journalists Donald Barlett and James Steele that chronicles "how an extremely resourceful corporation plays the welfare game, maximizing the benefits to itself, often to the detriment of those who provide them". It reports that Seaboard Corp. had a history of worker abuse and environmental damage during the same period that stock prices rose dramatically from $116 to $387 per share.[13] Rick Hoffman, CEO of the company's Seaboard Farms subsidiary, responded that "there were no programs that Seaboard solicited by the state that did not already exist for other new businesses", and that much of the money Time claimed was earmarked for Seaboard did not actually benefit the company.

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 Guaraní and Kolla indigenous communities, who maintain a claim to ancestral lands they have inhabited and farmed for centuries. In 2003, they were removed at gunpoint, re-invigorating a campaign to have Seaboard Corp. and San Martin de Tabacal return their land. The campaign gained the support of Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and other international activists.[14] In August 2007, a judge ordered Seaboard to cease all tree and earth removal pending a decision on land ownership.[15]

Female pigs in gestation crates

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 Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) complaints alleging false statements in defense of the abuses documented in video.[18]