Smithfield Foods CEO Shane Smith was paid $14.9 million in 2024, according to an April 18 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Though the company remains largely under the control of its Hong Kong-based parent company, WH Group, the January debut of 26 million shares, or 7%, of Foods’ stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market means the company for the first time since its 2013 purchase by WH Group is required to file quarterly financial reports and disclose its CEO’s pay to the SEC and shareholders.

The April 18 filing states Smith’s compensation package includes a $1.5 million base salary, a $3 million bonus, $8.7 million in “non-equity inventive plan compensation,” a $1.6 million “change in pension value and non qualified deferred compensation earnings” and $62,058 in “other compensation.”

“Non-equity incentive-plan compensation is cash pay that kicks in only when certain pre-set goals are hit,” said Thomas Schneider, a finance professor formerly of Old Dominion University now with the University of Oklahoma. “That’s different from discretionary bonuses, which aren’t necessarily tied to performance. Ideally, exec pay is tied to verifiable metrics that sit at the heart of the business model. For example, a company might design its plan so payouts occur when sales increase or operating costs fall by set amounts. Many firms rely on stock returns, earnings per share, or return on equity as benchmarks. Public disclosures suggest that Smithfield Foods bases its awards on net income as well as its packaged-meats segment profit and volume.”

An earlier SEC filing states the company ended 2024 with an adjusted profit of $1 billion, up $766 million, or nearly triple the $258 million adjusted profit for 2023. Foods defines “adjusted” income as excluding the effects of legal settlements resulting in gain or loss and transactions or events that are “not part of our core business activities or are unusual in nature.” The majority of the overall profit is tied to a record-breaking $1.2 billion profit ($1.1 billion adjusted) within Foods’ packaged meats market segment, which is up roughly $102 million, or 8.7%, from the $1 billion operating and adjusted profit packaged meats saw in 2023.

“That’s classic performance-sensitive pay: Management wins when the company wins and feels the sting when it doesn’t,” Schneider said. “Investors usually like that. Investors also prefer awards in restricted shares rather than cash because stock ownership keeps management’s interests lined up with theirs. Now that Smithfield Foods is publicly traded, I’d expect to see more stock- and option-based incentives in the mix.”

Nonqualified deferred compensation, Schneider said, is “an accounting treatment for pension-type benefits,” similar to but separate from an employer-sponsored 401(k) retirement savings plan.

 

How Smith’s pay compares with other CEOs

Smith is far from the highest-paid CEO in the state or nation. He would rank among the top 12 highest-paid CEOs in Virginia based on a state-by-state 2023 list maintained by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, or AFL-CIO, which includes 63 national and international labor unions representing more than 15 million workers. The list does not yet include Foods because it was created using data from before Foods went public.

Smith’s compensation is nearly 84% more than the $8.1 million Hormel CEO James Snee was paid in 2024. The Austin, Minnesota-based SPAM maker, by comparison, reported $11.9 billion in 2024 sales and a $2 billion profit in its year-end financials.

Smith’s pay, however, is lower than the $22.7 million Tyson Foods CEO Donnie King was paid last year. According to Tyson’s SEC filings, the Arkansas-based chicken, beef and pork processor saw $53.3 billion in sales and a $3.6 billion profit in 2024.

An SEC filing in 2016, the last year prior to 2025 in which Foods filed a public annual report, states then-CEO Kenneth Sullivan, who was succeeded in 2020 by Dennis Organ and in 2021 by Smith, was paid $5.6 million in 2015. Sullivan’s predecessor as CEO, Larry Pope, was paid $37.5 million in total compensation in 2014, with $17.5 million of that being stock option awards from WH Group.

Though Foods would not have been required in 2014 or 2015 to disclose its CEO pay, “many private companies choose to disclose” because “it helps with debt issuance and other capital markets,” Schneider said.