Hormel CEO Jim Snee to retire after 8-year tenure that included tumultuous pandemic era

Hormel Foods Chief Executive Jim Snee is retiring in October, ending a transformative eight-year tenure leading the Austin, Minn.-based company.

Snee oversaw the $3.3 billion purchase of Planters in 2021, the company’s largest acquisition in history. He also launched two major initiatives to shake off pandemic turbulence and get the company back to predictable growth.

Hormel also avoided hometown labor strife when the company agreed to what the union called a “historic” four-year contract in 2023.

“I am proud of the impactful, innovative and transformational work we have accomplished during my tenure, which has been a period of rapid and significant change,” Snee, 57, said in a statement Tuesday. “As we begin this transition, I’m confident in the bright future that lies ahead for Hormel Foods.”

The company will conduct a wide search for the next CEO. Snee will remain as a strategic adviser for 18 months after stepping down at the end of the fiscal year in October.

“On behalf of the entire board of directors, we extend our gratitude to Jim for his dedication to Hormel Foods, its stockholders, its employees and its communities,” said Bill Newlands, CEO of Constellation Brands and the board’s independent lead director.

The company’s largest shareholder, the Hormel Foundation, owns just under 47% of Hormel stock.

Over Snee’s 36-year career at Hormel, the maker of Spam, Jennie-O turkey and chili shifted from a meat-centric, commodity-heavy company to a branded food company, with more than a quarter of sales now coming from non-meat sources like Planters and Skippy peanut butter.

His tenure as CEO included navigating the upheaval of the pandemic, the ensuing global supply chain meltdown and rapid inflation that brought in record revenue and profits before consumers started turning away from high prices.

Hormel also faced a strike in 2022 at the California plant that produces Corn Nuts, which came with the Planters acquisition.

Snee said in an interview last month that the company is on solid footing following a “year of investment” as Hormel heads deeper into its multiyear “transform and modernize” initiative that a new leader will now carry across the finish line.

“The old saying, ‘Success breeds success,’ is really important here,” he said. “We’re on the right track.”