Smithfield Foods Q4 Profit Rises

Smithfield Foods Inc. reported a rise in its profit for the fourth quarter. Smithfield Foods posted a quarterly profit of $152.6 million, versus a year-ago profit of $34.7 million. Its revenue rose 5.1% to $4.1 billion. The company's sales at its packaged-meats segment climbed 9.8% to $2.2 billion. Gross margin widened to 11.2% versus 9%. Fresh pork operating margin shrank to 2% in the quarter, while packaged meats operating margin widened to 6%. Hog production operating margin came in at 8% in the quarter, while international operating margin surged to 11%. "Our record earnings underscore Smithfield's evolution into a branded packaged meats company. We made significant progress on a number of fronts this year across all of our divisions and I am proud to report that we continued to strengthen our marketing and brand building efforts to drive product mix improvements, while maximizing our manufacturing platform to operate more efficiently. This allowed us to deliver strong margins plus volume, market share and distribution gains across a number of our core brands and strategic product categories, despite extremely high raw material costs," said C. Larry Pope, president and chief executive officer.