WARSAW, N.C. -- Carroll's Foods, the nation's second-largest pork producer, has agreed to be acquired by Smithfield Foods in a deal worth about $500 million.
Both companies have operations in Utah.The deal announced Thursday will combine the nation's two largest processed meat producers and sellers and represents a major consolidation in North Carolina's pork industry.
"We have had a strategic alliance with Carroll's Foods for many years and are delighted that they will now become a full-fledged member of the Smithfield family," said Joseph W. Luter III, chairman and chief executive officer of Virginia-based Smithfield.
Carroll's, involved primarily with breeding pigs, was attractive to Smithfield, known for its retail products, according to an industry observer.
The two companies have been partners for years in Circle Four Farms, which is developing the world's largest hog production facility in Utah. Another joint venture, Smithfield-Carroll's, produces hogs in Virginia and North Carolina.
"This development is not unexpected," said Betsy Freese, livestock editor of Successful Farming magazine in Des Moines, Iowa. "It's just another stop along the road to vertical integration of the industry."
Carroll's Foods, like many pork producers, has struggled in recent months because of low pork prices. Carroll's president Sonny Faison said in December that the company was reducing its breeding stock by about 10,000 sows.
Freese said a declining turkey market in the mid-1990s also hurt Carroll's, which is one of the largest turkey producers in the country and is co-owner of Carolina Turkey, which operates the world's largest turkey processing plant near Mount Olive.
Faison said the deal should not have any effect on the 600 farmers who grow hogs under contracts with Carroll's.
"This deal should give our growers more security, if anything," he said.