Paula Deen a boon for Smithfield Foods

By Philip Walzer
The Virginian-Pilot
© January 23, 2011

Hey, y'all. Paula Deen has brought big bucks to Smithfield Foods, along with her bubbly personality and TV ads, company officials said last week.

Deen signed on in 2006 to serve as spokeswoman and put her imprint on several Smithfield brands. The meat packer sold 2 million pounds of Paula Deen-labeled spiral hams in fiscal 2008, said Chad Baker, vice president of retail sales. That is expected to shoot up to 5 million in 2011.

Also, margins for Deen's hams are double those of Smithfield's other spirals, according to a slide accompanying his talk during Smithfield's Investor Day at the company's Smithfield headquarters. The meeting featured a blitz of presentations and numbers, as well as some good-natured jousting between execs Larry Pope and George Richter.

Pope, Smithfield's CEO, introduced Richter, president of Smithfield's Pork Group, as a "40-year veteran" of the business. "You look it," Pope added, "without that hair." (Richter has much less than Pope.)

Richter shot back at Pope and his hyper personality: "God, somebody take his coffee away from him. This is very typical when you go visit Larry... Every time before I get here, I'm sure he goes out and gets three Starbucks coffees and three chocolate doughnuts."

Pope clarified from the background: "It's one Starbucks and two doughnuts."

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Fitting, I suppose...

Submitted by dokein on Mon, 01/24/2011 at 12:46 pm.

... that after being hit in the face with a Smithfield Ham, she should now have her face on them.

Smithfield Prices

Submitted by greatjob on Sun, 01/23/2011 at 2:40 pm.

Maybe the recent announcement concerning the upcoming price hike on Smithfield products is related to all the retouchers required to grossly over-photoshop Paula Deen's face before being plastered on all the tchotchke she shills.

Paula Deen is also good for

Submitted by OliverWHomey on Sun, 01/23/2011 at 9:02 am.

Cardiologists LOL

that space if insufficient

Submitted by nfkstateofmind on Sun, 01/23/2011 at 1:25 am.

but we need a wegmans down here! I love the wegmans in northern virginia. No way it could fit in downtown norfolk but please come to Virginia Beach. I emailed them and they said they responded in 24 hours saying while we have the population to support them, it would cost to much money to supply since we are not located next to a major highway (aka 95...as opposed to driving down the 2 lane highway 64 from richmond).