Smithfield Packing

This particular plant is a subsection of the nation’s largest producer of pork. After hearing about their hiring practices & threatening behavior towards their minority workers (namely African-​Americans & Latinos who were trying to join unions to protect their basic rights), I decided that I would never purchase any of their products.
So many people don’t even eat swine, but it’s not the pork that I was consuming. The company’s main headquarters are in — you guessed it — Smithfield, VA. They are a Fortune 500 company, with a history of processing some of America’s favorite ‘meat’ brands… Yep, that includes that Butterball turkey! This past Thanksgiving I was outraged that I could not visit a single chain grocer to buy my ingredients for dinner without it being a Smithfield product (whether the label said so or not).
Any major company will have its share of lawsuits and disgruntled employees. When you try to sic immigration enforcement officials on workers, and turn different ethnic groups against each other; it then becomes more than just a threatening stance. The disparities between those employees’ salaries and the tossing around of racial epithets is just the tip of the iceberg. This company’s solid reputation sounds like hogwash to me.