James Snee
Hormel Foods Corp.
Chair, chief executive and president
- Total compensation: $7,489,188 for the year ended Oct. 31
- Salary: $1,000,000
- Nonequity incentive pay: $4,734,050
- Other compensation: $244,278
- Exercised stock options: $1,510,860
- New stock options: 209,800
- Median employee pay: $50,369
- CEO pay ratio: 188 to 1
- Total fiscal 2021 total return: 13.4%
Note: Snee's compensation decreased from $7.7 million to $7.5 million owing to a small decrease in his annual cash incentive pay and a $100,000 reduction in the value of previously issued stock options that he exercised this year in comparison to last year.
Hormel's annual cash incentive combines an Operators' Share Plan (a plan that has been in place since 1932) based on earnings per share performance and an Annual Incentive Plan (AIP) based on a mix of financial measures.
In fiscal 2022 Hormel fell short of the goals for both the Operators' Share Plan and the AIP, resulting in lower-than-target payouts.
Hormel's stock had a total return of 13.4% over the 12 months of its fiscal year ended Oct. 31. That made it a rare gainer over a period when the S&P 500 Index had a negative 14% return.
At Hormel, 10% of Snee's AIP compensation can be earned by achieving inclusion and diversity targets. While those goals were not specifically defined in the proxy statement, the company did say Hormel underperformed on the environmental, social and governance goals last year.
