Hormel CEO says his impending retirement ‘makes sense’ amid big turnaround

Jim Snee is giving a Minnesota goodbye to the company he has led for the past eight years.

The Hormel Foods CEO announced last month that he’ll retire at the end of October, remaining on as an adviser into 2027.

Investors, to whom Snee has promised a major multiyear turnaround, are scratching their heads at the timing.

Analyst Ken Goldman at JP Morgan wrote the move “seemed somewhat sudden and was unexpected.”

“Is now really the ideal time?” Goldman asked during an earnings call Thursday morning.

Snee maintains that it is.

“I think it makes really good sense,” Snee said after the call.

Handing off the final year of the “transform and modernize” initiative to a new CEO will be a gift, not a burden, Snee reasoned.

“I remember vividly when I took this seat, one of the questions I got was: ‘What are you going to do differently?’” he said. “I think it’s the right thing to do, to give that next person the appropriate amount of time to think about what they want to do.”

Besides, he said, the company is so far accomplishing what it set out to do, and he’s not the one “doing the day-to-day work.”

“The bigger thing is the team has bought in, setting us up for success over the long term,” Snee said.

By the time he retires, Snee will have spent 36 years at Hormel and nine years at the helm, above average for a Fortune 500 CEO.

“When you get to the question of ‘Why now?’ there’s never a perfect answer,“ he said. ”But as you take a step back on where we are as an organization, candidly, I’m so proud of the work we’ve all done.”

There’s still plenty to do while Snee is CEO, though, to meet this year’s growth goals.

Amid several bright spots to start 2025 — including Spam, Jennie-O ground turkey and food service sales — comes continued stress about low prices for whole turkeys and the slow rebound of a Planters manufacturing facility.

Hormel’s head of retail, John Ghingo, said cumulative inflation is still pressuring shoppers who are on the hunt for value, though that doesn’t always mean spending less.

“We really love our portfolio, and we can deliver value to consumers in a lot of different ways,” he said, noting higher-priced Applegate bacon has sold very well in recent months.

There is also room to expand the portfolio if the right deal surfaces.

“Our balance sheet allows us the latitude to do something if it’s a good fit for the company,” said Chief Financial Officer Jacinth Smiley.

Beyond finding the right successor and continuing the investments to transform and modernize, Snee said a key goal before his retirement will be “knowing we’ve got turkey and Planters in a good place.”

“We know we’ll be able to weather the storms, and we’re going to be able to stay in the business for the long term,” he said. “Profitability will move from quarter to quarter, but the important thing is we stay on track.”

Hormel missed earnings expectations for the first fiscal quarter that ended in January. The company reported a $170.5 million profit on $2.99 billion in revenue. Earnings per share came in at 35 cents, below a 38-cent estimate and 40-cent-per-share haul reported last year.

Hormel’s stock price slipped 3% on Thursday morning.