Dive Summary:
- Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd. Chairman Wan Long sees the company's $4.7 billion acquisition of Smithfield Food Inc.--the largest Chinese acquisition of a U.S. company--as a way to utilize foreign expertise and technology in improving food safety and production in the Chinese pork industry.
- China's pork industry is worth about $183 billion a year but the country's food industry has been plagued with scandals like tainted milk and the illegal dumping of hogs in rivers, and Shanghui itself apologized in March 2011 after illegal additives were found in its meat.
- The Smithfield purchase makes more advanced production technology and 460 farms raising 15.8 million hogs a year available to China's top pork producer.
From the article:
... “The question of food safety, whether it’s to American consumers or Chinese consumers, is a big deal,” Wan said in an interview at his office in Luohe city in Henan province, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) south of Beijing, sitting in front of a world map that hangs behind him. “Our nation has a tighter and tighter grip over food safety.” ...
