No Official Word on Possible Sale of Pilgrim’s Pride

Andrew Jenner
Virginia Correspondent

HARRISONBURG, Va. — Nearly a week after numerous national media outlets reported that the Brazilian meat company JBS SA was poised to purchase Pilgrim’s Pride, officials with the poultry company continued to remain silent on the rumored deal.

“We are not commenting on the reports,” wrote Ray Atkinson, Pilgrim’s Pride director of corporate communications, in an email to Lancaster Farming.

Atkinson previously told the Associated Press that the company does not comment on rumor or speculation.

According to The Wall Street Journal, JBS SA – one of the world’s largest meat companies that, so far, does not have any poultry operations – was prepared to purchase Pilgrim’s Pride for around $2.5 billion.

Pilgrim’s Pride is one of the largest chicken companies in the country, and the biggest integrator in the Shenandoah Valley and neighboring portions of West Virginia. Between its complexes in Rockingham County, Va. and Moorefield, W.Va., the company employs about 2,500 people, according to local news reports. It also contracts with hundreds of growers in the area.

“I’m concerned,” said Jerry Turner, a Pilgrim’s Pride grower from Page County, Va.. “Any time there’s uncertainty about who you’re going to be working for, there’s cause for concern.”

Turner, who first heard about the rumored sale last week when it was reported in a local newspaper, said he was shocked by the news, which, he acknowledged, might be prove to be unfounded rumor. He also said he was uncomfortable with the possibility that such an important part of the local economy may soon be under foreign ownership.

Last December, in the face of high corn prices and weakening demand, Pilgrim’s Pride entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy. During the past several months, however, the company’s financial health had shown signs of improvement, which is one reason that news of a potential sale of the company came as a shock to Turner.

Hobey Bauhan, president of the Virginia Poultry Federation, directed all inquiries about the possible purchase to Pilgrim’s Pride.

Employees of Pilgrim’s Pride haven’t been given any further information, either, according to a source who asked not to be named. Rumors about the impending sale have been a topic of much debate among workers at one of the local Pilgrim’s Pride processing facilities, the source said, adding that the prevailing opinion is that the sale — if it actually happens — will be just one more corporate change that has little effect on day-to-day operations.

Over the past quarter-century, the integrated poultry complex now operated by Pilgrim’s Pride has undergone several changes in ownership. Pilgrim’s Pride established itself in the region in 2001, when it purchased the poultry operations of Wampler Foods. Before that, the complex was run by WLR Foods, which took over from the Rockingham Poultry Cooperative in 1988.