ConAgra Foods

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Image:Unbalanced scales.svg

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.(December 2007) Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved.

ConAgra Foods, Inc.
Type	Public (NYSE: CAG)
Founded	1919
Headquarters	Image:Flag of the United States.svg Omaha, Nebraska
Key people	Gary Rodkin President & CEO
Industry	Food processing
Products	See products section
Revenue	Image:Green Arrow Up Darker.svg$12.03 billion USD (2007)
Employees	24,500 (2007)
Website	www.conagra.com

ConAgra Foods, Inc. (NYSE: CAG) is one of North America's largest packaged foods companies. ConAgra's products are available in supermarkets, as well as restaurants and food service establishments. Its headquarters are located in Omaha, Nebraska.

Contents 1 History 2 Governance 3 Products 4 Criticism 4.1 Environmental issues 4.2 Labor issues 4.3 Health issues 4.4 Ethical issues 4.5 Slaughterhouse operations 5 Product incidents 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] History

ConAgra was founded in 1919 by Alva Kinney, who brought together four grain mills as Nebraska Consolidated Mills. In 1940, the company began producing flour at its own mill, and in 1942 ventured into the livestock feed business. Consolidated Mills funded the establishment of Duncan Hines in 1951 as a way to market more flour by selling cake mixes. This venture was very successful. In fact, they are now the third largest flour miller, but this did not lead Consolidated to consider other food ventures. Instead, they sold their assets in Duncan Hines to Procter & Gamble in 1956. As American households purchased more and more prepared and instant foods in the 1950s and 1960s, Consolidated chose not to expand into the businesses that used their flour, instead turning in the opposite direction and focusing more on raw foods like poultry and expanding its livestock feed business.

In 1971, Consolidated Mills changed its name to ConAgra, a combination of con for consolidated and agra meaning from the earth in Latin. The 1970s brought the company to the brink of ruin as it lost money expanding into the fertilizer, catfish, and pet product industries and as commodity speculation wiped out ConAgra's margins on raw foods. In 1974, Charles M. Harper ("Mike" Harper), an experienced food industry executive, took over the firm and brought it back from the brink of bankruptcy. Nonetheless, ConAgra's business model left it at the mercy of volatile commodity prices. In response, the company set off on a two-decade-long buying spree, purchasing over one hundred prepared food brands, starting with its 1980 purchase of Banquet Foods. It moved heavily into the frozen food business and the packaged meat industry, and then picked up a selection of other brands from firms like RJR Nabisco and Beatrice Foods among others, as the leveraged buyouts of the 1980s resulted in the divestiture or breakup of many major American consumer product firms. In 1993 alone it purchased $500 million in smaller firms, and in 1998 it purchased another $480 million in brands from Nabisco.

[edit] Governance

The board of directors are: Mogens Bay, Stephen Butler, John Chain, Steven Goldstone, Alice Hayes, W.G. Jurgensen, Ruth Ann Marshall, Mark Rauenhorst, Carl Reichardt, Gary Rodkin, Ronald Roskens, Andrew Schinler and Kenneth Stinson ^[1].

[edit] Products

Main article: List of ConAgra brands

ConAgra produces a wide array of food products, including cooking oil, frozen dinners, hot cocoa, hot dogs, peanut butter and many others. Some of ConAgra's major brands include Hunt's, Swiss Miss and Knott's Berry Farm.

[edit] Criticism

[edit] Environmental issues

ConAgra has been criticized for its lack of response to global warming. A 2006 report by CERES, a non-profit organization that works to address global climate change and other sustainability issues, titled "Corporate Governance and Climate Change: Making the Connection," measures how 100 leading global companies are responding to global warming. Companies in the report were evaluated on a 0 to 100 scale. ConAgra scored a total of 4 points, the lowest of any of the food companies rated.^[2]

In 2002, ConAgra, together with other major food and beverage companies including PepsiCo, General Mills, Kellogg, Sara Lee, and H.J. Heinz Co., spent heavily to defeat Oregon's measure 27, which would have required food companies to label products that contain genetically modified ingredients.^[3] According to the Oregon Secretary of State, ConAgra contributed $71,000 to the campaign to defeat the ballot initiative.^[4]

In 2003-2004, ConAgra participated in a Minnesota Pollution Control Agency voluntary investigation and clean-up program. Through the program, the company cleaned up a property previously used for lithium ore processing and constructed a new 80,000-square-foot (7,000 m²) office/warehouse building. ^[5]

[edit] Labor issues

In May 2003, ConAgra and its subsidiary Gilroy Foods agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle charges of hiring discrimination brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The charges involved a July 1999 Teamsters strike at a plant in King City, then owned by Basic Vegetable Products LP but later purchased by ConAgra. In August 2001, the company successfully negotiated with the union to end the two-year strike with a new contract that would recall workers based on seniority. However, the recall process excluded workers who were on leave at the time of the purchase including those out due to work injury or pregnancy. Others were denied jobs due to a history of previous injury or illness, despite their having no restrictions on returning to work. According to the EEOC, most of the 39 workers who were excluded from the recall process had been working at the plant for 10 to 20 years and were primarily Hispanic and female. ^[6]

The company's Greeley Colorado plant had been cited almost 10 times from 1999 to 2002 for violating worker safety^[7].

[edit] Health issues

In 2001, the U.S. Department of Agriculture halted operations at two ConAgra plants because of health violations. The company was threatened with shutdowns at least a half dozen more times.^{[citation needed]} The ConAgra facility in Longmont, Colorado, had the highest rate of salmonella among all the turkey processors tested by the Department during 2001. Nearly half of the turkeys processed at ConAgra’s Longmont, Colorado, facility were contaminated with harmful Salmonella bacteria, compared with a rate of 13 percent for the industry at large.^[8]

[edit] Ethical issues

In 1997 ConAgra pled guilty to federal criminal charges that its Peavey Grain unit illegally sprayed water on stored grain to increase its weight and value and also bribed Federal inspectors. The company agreed to pay $8.3 million to resolve the charges, which included a $4.4 million criminal fine, $3.45 million as compensation for illegal profits and $450,000 to reimburse the U.S. Department of Agriculture for storage and investigation expenses. ConAgra had also paid $2 million to settle a related civil case filed by a group of Indiana farmers. ^[9]

Multinational Monitor, a corporate watchdog organization, named ConAgra one of the 'Top 100 Corporate Criminals of the 1990s'.^[10]

[edit] Slaughterhouse operations

ConAgra and its operations are mentioned in the book Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. Schlosser describes a visit to a ConAgra Beef Company slaughterhouse in Greeley, Weld Country, Colorado - the nation's largest meatpacking complex - and describes what he says are appalling conditions for the animals as well as for the town itself, which has to put up with appalling smells as well as an increased rate of crime, poverty and drug abuse owing to the influx of cheap immigrant workers.^[11]

At the slaughterhouse, Schlosser describes a huge mass of animals waiting to be slaughtered as a "sea of cattle, a mooing, moving mass of brown and white fur that goes on for acres." Schlosser states the animals are kept in a pair of enormous feedlots for three months before slaughter, eating grain dumped in long concrete troughs, which fatten the cattle quickly, aided by anabolic steroids implanted in their ear. This ensures, according to Schlosser, that a typical steer will gain four hundred pounds in weight over this time period. Schlosser describes the cattle's manure as being 'dumped into pits, huge pools of excrement that the industry calls "lagoons".^[12]

[edit] Product incidents

ConAgra recalled 19 million pounds of ground beef in July of 2002 with E. coli bacterial contamination. It was the third-largest recall up to that time. That meat was linked to the illnesses of 19 people in six Western and Midwestern states. ^[13]

In February of 2007, ConAgra recalled jars of Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter with the product code "2111" on the lid, because they were linked to a salmonella outbreak. Ultimately, the Centers for Disease Conrol documented more than 628 individuals who were stricken with salmonella poisoning in 47 states that could be traced back to Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter. Of those, 20 percent were hospitalized, according to the CDC, which reported no deaths associated with the outbreak. ^[14] Since Peter Pan (but not Great Value) is only made at one plant, the recall turned out to include all Peter Pan jars sold in the U.S. between May 2006 and February 2007. ^[15] As of August, 2007, 39 lawsuits had been filed against ConAgra, seeking a total of more than $5 million in damages for doctor bills, hospital stays, and lost wages stemming from the contaminated food. ^[16]

On September 4, 2007, the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers recommended reduction of diacetyl in butter-like flavorings, such as those used in popcorn, due to cases of the potentially fatal disease bronchiolitis obliterans or "Popcorn Workers's Lung" appearing among plant workers exposed to diacetyl fumes, as well as in one case that involved a popcorn consumer. The next day ConAgra Foods announced that it would soon remove diacetyl from its Jiffy Pop and Orville Redenbacher's popcorn products. ^[17]

On October 11, 2007, ConAgra asked stores to pull the Banquet and generic brand chicken and turkey pot pies due to 152 cases of salmonella poisoning in 31 states being linked to the consumption of ConAgra pot pies, with 20 people hospitalized. At that time, both the USDA and ConAgra decided in favor of a consumer advisory and against a recall. ConAgra said the issue stemmed from pies not being cooked thoroughly in older microwaves, and that the package's heating instructions would be changed to reflect different microwaves. ^[18] However, the plant in Marshall, Missouri where the pot pies were manufactured was closed on October 11 as well. ^[19] By October 12, a full recall was announced, affecting all varieties of frozen pot pies sold under the brands Banquet, Albertson’s, Food Lion, Great Value, Hill Country Fare, Kirkwood, Kroger, Meijer, and Western Family. The recalled pot pies included all varieties in 7-oz. single-serving packages bearing the number P-9 or “Est. 1059” printed on the side of the package. ^[20] By October 14, there were 174 cases of salmonella poisoning in 32 states being linked to the consumption of the contaminated ConAgra pot pies, with 33 people hospitalized. Public interest groups criticized ConAgra for the delay in issuing the recall, a decision which ConAgra defended by saying the recall was a precaution. At the time of the recall, the USDA had still not identified the source of the salmonella contamination.^[21]On October 17, the Colorado Dept. of Public Health reported that "An investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state public health departments involved a large cluster of illnesses caused by Salmonella that identified these products" and stated that, "Nationally, at least 211 individuals from 35 states have become ill." ^[22]

[edit] See also

• List of ConAgra brands
• List of United States foodborne illness outbreaks

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• ConAgra Foods, Inc. Web sitede:ConAgra Foods

simple:ConAgra Foods, Inc.