Sioux Falls Meat processor Smithfield is upgrading their Sioux Falls operation to meet the nation’s demand for bacon. Hot, crispy smoky bacon:
The old John Morrell and Co. plant in central Sioux Falls will get a face-lift and add 70 jobs as the current owner reacts to Americans’ hunger for bacon.
Smithfield Foods will invest $45 million in its Sioux Falls operations, according to a Thursday announcement from the company.
This might be the ‘feel good’ story of the day!
Announcement on the heels of the news of their $50,000 fine for polluting the Big Sioux River in Sioux Falls.
Are they able to send out the smoke created by making the bacon into the air around Sioux Falls so I can smell bacon every time I step out my front door? Can we have a public vote to force them to give us cut rate prices on those delectable strips of heaven? Are they hiring a taste tester?
The very first time I drove through Sioux City there was a kill on at IBP. I smelled bacon and went “Ummm…” Then a minute later the bacon smell turned to “bacon-processing” smell and my mood changed markedly!
Smithfield has changed a lot since the John Morrell days and even the Chiquita-owned John Morrell days. The current company has retreated from philanthropic support (e.g., Forward Sioux Falls campaigns) and lost much of its reputation as a locally involved company. Perhaps inevitable now that it’s part of a Chinese conglomerate, but the changes prompt political and philanthropic questions for the city that must be addressed.
I love the smell of the plant. It is the smell of people working, farmers getting to market and people eating.
When 70 people go to work, it is always a good thing. By definition, it is an improvement of their current situation (or they’d stay where they were) which is good for them, their children, and our community.
The small amount (and it is small relative to the greater benefits to our economy) of the lost donations is a focus on the small picture. There are 70 families who are going to get an improvement in their lives.
Plus, money can’t buy you happiness. But, money can buy you bacon which is close. (stole that from a meme). My favorite meme is a picture of a refrigerator filled with bacon plus two quarts of orange juice and it has the banner “Who needs that much orange juice.”
Smithfield places want ads in Mexican media markets to get employees. I found that out when I asked a man how he found his way to Sioux Falls looking for work. Saw the ads, he told me. Of course they don’t suggest people cross the border illegally, but they don’t discourage it, either. But the effect is, the immigrants feel they are responding to an invitation to enter the US.
Troy:
Being a Republican and a capitalist by nature, I was temporarily at a loss about how best to reply to your thoughts. Then I remembered it is Christmas season and time for Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”
There is a scene were two businessmen arrive at Scrooge’s office to solicit a contribution for a pool of funds to be used for the benefit of the poor. Scrooge’s response (paraphrased) is that he pays taxes and that there are prisons and workhouses. The inadequacy of these solutions is not Scrooge’s problem.
Jacob Marley’s ghost makes an excellent point when he rebukes Scrooge’s comment about being “a man of business” by saying “*Mankind* is my business!”
Employers do much to benefit a community beyond the fair wage for a day’s labor they are expected to provide and the fair value for goods and services they sell. Charity and civic participation are, and should be, voluntary. The extent to which we value charity and civic participation by businesses is the extent we should praise and question those who do and do not practice it.
Michael,
My point of raising corporate charity in context to this investment and new jobs is to me comparable to when one announce the arrival of a new baby lamenting how the person isn’t drinking with the guys like one used to.
Michael,
The big picture is the company as an employer is multiples of times more than their charitable presence (which is still significant). And, I think the impact of this investment is bigger than the amount of their reduction of charity.