Hormel Foods is selling its whole-bird turkey business to another Minnesota company as the turkey industry faces waning consumer demand.
The sale to Willmar-based Life-Science Innovations includes a Melrose production facility and a Swanville feed mill, along with associated transportation equipment. But Hormel, headquartered in Austin, will retain ownership of the Jennie-O name and will continue to sell the brand’s ground turkey.
Minnesota is the No. 1 turkey producer in the U.S., and the ground meat product has driven growth for Hormel despite the overall turkey troubles.
A Hormel spokeswoman said consumers can purchase frozen whole-bird Jennie-O turkeys through 2026. After that, Hormel will only sell Jennie-O’s oven-ready turkeys in stores.
“Our strategy for sustainable, profitable growth centers on expanding our value-added protein portfolio to meet evolving consumer needs, while reducing our exposure to more volatile, commodity-driven businesses,” said Jeff Ettinger, Homel’s interim chief executive officer, in a Feb. 17 news release announcing the deal.
Hormel did not disclose the sale price of the whole-turkey business, which it expects to close by the end of the second quarter of its fiscal year.
Like much of the food industry, the company has struggled to consistently grow sales and profits during a period of volatile commodity prices. The price of slaughtered turkeys has spiked, plummeted and then spiked again since 2022. Bird flu has also created pressure, with the H5N1 virus killing tens of thousands of the company’s turkeys.
Kristoffer Inton, an analyst at Morningstar, said in a note to investors the sale makes “strategic sense” as it provides “greater earnings stability.” The whole-bird turkey market, he continued, is a turbulent component of Hormel’s business because of its “commoditized nature.”
