Seaboard Corporation is a diverse
multinational agribusiness
Agribusiness is the industry, enterprises, and the field of study of value chains in agriculture and in the bio-economy,
in which case it is also called bio-business or bio-enterprise.
The primary goal of agribusiness is to maximize profit ...
and
transportation
Transport (in British English) or transportation (in American English) is the intentional Motion, movement of humans, animals, and cargo, goods from one location to another. Mode of transport, Modes of transport include aviation, air, land tr ...
conglomerate with integrated operations in several industries. In the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
, the company mainly engages in
pork
Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig animal husbandry, husbandry dating back to 8000–9000 BCE.
Pork is eaten both freshly cooke ...
production and processing and ocean transportation. Internationally, Seaboard is primarily engaged in
commodity
In economics, a commodity is an economic goods, good, usually a resource, that specifically has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the Market (economics), market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to w ...
merchandising
Merchandising is any practice which contributes to the sale of Product (business), products ("merch" colloquially) to a retail consumer. At a retail in-store level, merchandising refers to displaying products that are for sale in a creative w ...
,
grain
A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached husk, hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and ...
processing,
sugar
Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose
Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...
production and
electrical power
Electric power is the rate of transfer of electrical energy within a electric circuit, circuit. Its SI unit is the watt, the general unit of power (physics), power, defined as one joule per second. Standard prefixes apply to watts as with oth ...
generation.
The parent company, Seaboard Corporation is based in the
Kansas City suburb of
Merriam, Kansas
Merriam is a city in Johnson County, Kansas, United States, and part of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 11,098. Merriam is included in the Shawnee Mission postal designation. It is al ...
. Its subsidiaries include Seaboard Foods, Seaboard Marine, Seaboard Overseas & Trading Group (SOTG), Tabacal Agroindustria, Transcontinental Capital Corporation, Ltd. (TCCB), and Mount Dora Farms. It has 52.5% controlling interest in
Butterball, LLC. Its principal operating divisions are pork, commodity trading and milling, marine, sugar, and power. More than 50% of the corporation is owned by members of its founding family, the Breskys.
Seaboard Corporation's subsidiaries and affiliates employ more than 23,000 people in more than 45 different countries, mostly in the U.S.,
Latin America
Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...
and
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
. With net sales of approximately $6.8 billion annually, Seaboard Corporation is #444 on the 2020
Fortune 500
The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune (magazine), Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States Joint-stock company#Closely held corporations and publicly traded corporations, corporations by ...
list, having risen almost 40 spots in 2 years. Stock is traded on the
NYSE MKT
NYSE American, formerly known as the American Stock Exchange (AMEX), and more recently as NYSE MKT, is an American stock exchange situated in New York City. AMEX was previously a mutual organization, owned by its members. Until 1953, it was know ...
under the symbol SEB.
History
Seaboard's history is deeply tied to grain. Otto Bresky purchased his first flour mill in
Atchison, Kansas, in 1918. During the next 40 years he would purchase additional flour mills, mostly in
Kansas
Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...
, under the name Rodney Milling.
In 1959 the company went public through a merger with Hathaway Industries, Inc., a
publicly traded
A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of share capital, stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) co ...
company. The name changed to Seaboard Allied Milling Corporation, and stock was traded under the symbol SEB.
The newly formed company began concentrating on milling operations closer to major metropolitan areas along the East Coast and in the Southeast. Beginning in the early 1960s Seaboard built five U.S. mills over the course of a 14-year period. The company's first investment outside the U.S. was the joint acquisition of a flour mill in
Ecuador
Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...
. Seaboard later constructed mills in
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...
,
Guyana
Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern coast of South America, part of the historic British West Indies. entry "Guyana" Georgetown, Guyana, Georgetown is the capital of Guyana and is also the co ...
,
Liberia
Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to Guinea–Liberia border, its north, Ivory Coast to Ivory Coast–Lib ...
and
Nigeria
Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...
.
When Otto Bresky retired as Seaboard's chairman and member of the board of directors in 1973, his son H. Harry Bresky took his place. After serving in WWII, Harry joined his father in the milling business and assumed the title of president in 1967, then later CEO. Seaboard built its current corporate headquarters in Merriam, Kansas in 1980.
In 1982 Seaboard sold its domestic flour milling division to
Cargill, Inc. and changed its name to Seaboard Corporation, while continuing its milling operations outside the U.S. Harry Bresky and Seaboard took noticeable steps to diversify the company, initially by entering the poultry industry and by further international investments. Even though Seaboard eventually sold these original poultry interests to
ConAgra in 2000 for $375 million,
the poultry business proved the efficiency of a
vertically integrated business model. This model of integration would continue to be successful in Seaboard's expansion and growth.
Seaboard Marine, Ltd. was formed in 1983 to provide
containerization
Containerization is a system of intermodal freight transport using intermodal containers (also called shipping containers, or International Organization for Standardization, ISO containers). Containerization, also referred as container stuf ...
services between the U.S. and other international ports. In 1986 Mount Dora Farms, Inc. was established in Latin America to produce fruits and vegetables. The company utilized its
marine transportation division to ship its produce from South America to
Miami
Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...
. Today Mount Dora Farms, Seaboard's produce division, specializes in processing
jalapeños in
Honduras
Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...
to ship to the U.S. and European markets.
Also during the decade of the ‘80s, Seaboard purchased two baking companies in Puerto Rico and ventured into
shrimp farming in Ecuador and the Honduras. It constructed a new
polypropylene
Polypropylene (PP), also known as polypropene, is a thermoplastic polymer used in a wide variety of applications. It is produced via chain-growth polymerization from the monomer Propene, propylene.
Polypropylene belongs to the group of polyolefin ...
bag plant in Nigeria. The Puerto Rico bakeries were sold in 1998, and after a brief entry into
salmon farming, Seaboard eventually sold off all seafood investments in the early 2000s.
Transcontinental Capital Corporation, Ltd. formed in 1989 with the purpose of supplying electrical power to the
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...
. The new
subsidiary
A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company (law), company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidia ...
was the first independent power producer in the Dominican Republic.
In 1990, Seaboard Corporation began pork production and processing. The company's pork division, Seaboard Foods, acquired a pork processing plant in
Albert Lea, Minnesota. As it had done with poultry, Seaboard quickly began to invest in processing pork, constructing its first feeder pig facility and feed mill in Northeast
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...
in 1991. In 1992 Seaboard began construction on a state of the art pork processing facility in
Guymon, Oklahoma. To support the Guymon facility, Seaboard constructed feed mills in
Oklahoma
Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...
,
Texas
Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...
and
Kansas
Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...
. Guymon eventually opened in 1996. The $110 million plant had the capacity to process over four million hogs annually, employing more than 1,000 workers, utilizing two shifts. The Minnesota pork processing plant closed in 1994.
That same year, in 1996, Seaboard acquired an interest in Tabacal Agroindustria, an
Argentine
Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...
company engaged in sugar cane production and refining and
citrus
''Citrus'' is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs in the family Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops such as oranges, mandarins, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and limes.
''Citrus'' is nativ ...
production. Two years later, in 1998, Seaboard Corporation purchased a controlling interest in a winery in
Bulgaria
Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...
.
Seaboard added Daily's® Premium Meats, a bacon processor with two processing plants in
Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Salt ...
and
Missoula, Montana to its integrated operations in 2005. Seaboard also has an exclusive agreement to market Triumph Foods pork products utilizing a processing plant in
St. Joseph, Missouri.
H. Harry Bresky retired in July 2006, but remained chairman of the board until his death in March 2007. Steven J. Bresky, his son, then served as Seaboard Corporation's president and CEO and its director and chairman of the board until his death in 2020.
Seaboard once again entered the poultry business with the acquisition of half ownership in Butterball, LLC in 2010.
With continued expansion in commodities trading, alcohol
distillery operations and specialty crops processing abroad, Seaboard exceeded $4 billion in revenue by 2010. In 2011 Seaboard Corporation made the Fortune 500 for the first time in company history.
In 2018, Seaboard acquired the West-African agri-food group Mimran, increasing its flour and feed milling capacity with approximately 15 percent to over 24,000 metric tons per day.
Divisions
Pork
Seaboard was a pioneer in the vertical integration of the U.S. pork industry. Seaboard Foods, its Pork Division, is able to efficiently control pork production across the entire life cycle of the hog. Seaboard Foods hog production facilities in Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Iowa and Texas consist of genetic and commercial breeding,
farrowing, nursery and finishing buildings. They produce more than 5 million hogs annually. Hogs processed at Seaboard's main plant in Guymon, Oklahoma are primarily Seaboard Foods raised hogs. At full capacity, the facility processes approximately 20,000 hogs per day, selling to further processors, food service operators, grocery stores, distributors, export and retail outlets. The Pork segment is mainly a U.S. business, with some export to Japan, Mexico, Russia, Korea and other foreign markets. In 2013 Seaboard was ranked #2 in pork production and #4 in processing in the U.S. (including Triumph Foods volume).
Since 2008 Seaboard Foods has been producing
biodiesel
Biodiesel is a renewable biofuel, a form of diesel fuel, derived from biological sources like vegetable oils, animal fats, or recycled greases, and consisting of long-chain fatty acid esters. It is typically made from fats.
The roots of bi ...
from the
animal by-products
An animal product is any material derived from the body of a non-human animal or their excretions. Examples are meat, fat, blood, milk, Eggs as food, eggs, honey, and lesser known products, such as isinglass, rennet, and Carminic acid, cochinea ...
of Guymon's processing plant. High Plains Bioenergy, a wholly owned subsidiary of Seaboard Foods, produces more than 30 million gallons annually. High Plains Bioenergy is located next to the Guymon, Oklahoma, processing plant and also has the capabilities to produce vegetable oil.
Seaboard bought a defunct ethanol plant in Hugoton Kansas and converted it to a renewable diesel plant.
Other ventures include renewable natural gas made from
biogas
Biogas is a gaseous renewable energy source produced from raw materials such as agricultural waste, manure, municipal waste, plant material, sewage, green waste, Wastewater treatment, wastewater, and food waste. Biogas is produced by anaerobic ...
.
In 2009 Seaboard Foods opened, Seaboard Foods de México, to produce fresh boneless hams, using mostly bone-in hams from Guymon's U.S. facility.
Commodity trading and milling
Managed under the name Seaboard Overseas and Trading Group (SOTG), the Commodity Trading and Milling segment sources, transports, and markets
wheat
Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...
,
corn,
soybean meal, and other commodities. These commodities are purchased worldwide, with primary destinations in Africa, South America and the Caribbean.
SOTG operates facilities in 23 countries. With ten trade offices in nine countries, Seaboard traded more than 8 million tons of agricultural products into approximately 100 countries in 2013.
Marine
The Marine segment provides
cargo
In transportation, cargo refers to goods transported by land, water or air, while freight refers to its conveyance. In economics, freight refers to goods transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. The term cargo is also used in cas ...
shipping services mostly between the United States and 26 countries in the
Caribbean Basin, Central and South America. Seaboard Marine's primary office is in Miami, but also operates out of the Port of Houston, Brooklyn, New York and New Orleans. The division's fleet consists of 30 vessels and over 60,000 dry, refrigerated, specialized containers and related equipment. It uses a network of offices and agents with full service capabilities to allow truck or rail transport to and from various U.S. ports.
Sugar
Tabacal Agroindustria in Argentina has an annual capacity to produce approximately 250,000 metric tons of sugar and approximately 15 million gallons of alcohol. The mill is located in the
Salta Province of Argentina, with administrative offices in Buenos Aires.
This segment also owns a 51
megawatt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...
cogeneration power plant. The plant is fueled by the burning of sugarcane by-products during harvest season. It also sells dehydrated alcohol to certain oil companies under an Argentine government
bio-ethanol program.
Power
Seaboard's Transcontinental Capital Corporation (TCC) electric power generating facility is in the Dominican Republic. Using a system of
diesel engines mounted on floating
barges, TCC generates a combined rated capacity of approximately 178 megawatts. As an independent power producer, Seaboard generates electricity for the local power grid, selling mainly to government-owned distribution companies.
Other
With a 50% acquisition of Butterball, LLC, Seaboard added a turkey segment to its portfolio in 2010. Butterball is the largest vertically integrated producer, processor and marketer of branded and non-branded turkey and other products. Butterball produces approximately one billion pounds of turkey each year.
Through Mount Dora Farms, Seaboard processes jalapeño peppers at its plant in Honduras.
Corporate
Each of Seaboard Corporation's segments is separately managed, and each was started or acquired independent of the other segments. Most of the sales and costs of Seaboard's segments are significantly influenced by worldwide fluctuations in commodity prices and changes in foreign and political conditions.
As of September 27, 2014, Seaboard Foods Pork segment sold to Triumph Foods LLC a 50% interest in Daily's Premium Meats, its processed meats division.
Awards
Seaboard Foods received the 2014 Achievement Award from NGVAmerica for Outstanding CNG Fleet & Station Program. NGVAmerica is the national organization driving the use of natural gas.
For seven consecutive years, Seaboard Marine has been recognized by the Jamaican Exporters Association (JEA) for its growth and development of Jamaica's export sector. The JEA is a non-government members association.
In August 2014, Seaboard Marine was awarded a
Logistics Management magazine 2014 Quest for Quality Award in Ocean Carriers for the third consecutive year. Logistic Management's over 7,000 readers chose top performers in various transportation sectors.
Criticism
Corporate welfare
In 1998, ''
Time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'' magazine published "The Empire of the Pigs" by investigative journalists
Donald Barlett and
James Steele that chronicles "how an extremely resourceful corporation plays the welfare game, maximizing the benefits to itself, often to the detriment of those who provide them". It reports that Seaboard Corp. had a history of worker abuse and environmental damage during the same period that stock prices rose dramatically from $116 to $387 per share. Rick Hoffman, CEO of the company's Seaboard Farms subsidiary, responded that "there were no programs that Seaboard solicited by the state that did not already exist for other new businesses", and that much of the money ''Time'' claimed was earmarked for Seaboard did not actually benefit the company.
Land misappropriation
In 1996, Seaboard bought the sugar plantation and refinery San Martin de Tabacal, in Salta, Argentina, and immediately fired 6,000 workers. Many of them were members of the Ava
Guaraní and Kolla indigenous communities, who maintain a claim to ancestral lands they have inhabited and farmed for centuries. In 2003, they were removed at gunpoint, re-invigorating a campaign to have Seaboard Corp. and San Martin de Tabacal return their land. The campaign gained the support of
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and other international activists. In August 2007, a judge ordered Seaboard to cease all tree and earth removal pending a decision on land ownership.
Animal cruelty

In January 2012, an undercover exposé of Seaboard pig operations revealed numerous severe welfare concerns including sanitation, abandonment of dead or medically suffering animals, violent abuse, and callous indifference to pain.
Following the investigation, Seaboard faced
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) United States antitrust law, antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. It ...
(FTC) and
Securities and Exchange Commission
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street crash of 1929. Its primary purpose is to enforce laws against market m ...
(SEC) complaints alleging false statements in defense of the abuses documented in video.
References
External links
* {{Official website, https://seaboardcorp.com
HooversSEC FilingsTabacal Agroindustria homepage*
LMM Farine SA
Agriculture companies of the United States
Sugar companies of the United States
Conglomerate companies of the United States
Companies based in Kansas
Food and drink companies established in 1918
1918 establishments in Kansas
Companies listed on NYSE American