Simmons Foods

Simmons Foods

File:Simmons Foods logo.png
Company type	Private
Industry	Food Manufacturing
Founded	1949 (1949)
Founder	M.H. Bill Simmons
Headquarters	Siloam Springs, Arkansas , United States of America
Key people	Mitch Newton, M.H. Bill Simmons, Todd Simmons (CEO), Mike Czuba, Mark C. Simmons (Chairman)
Revenue	2.4 billion US$ (2021)
Number of employees	Approx. 7000 (2021)
Divisions	Pet food Animal Nutrition Prepared Foods
Website	simmonsfoods.com

Simmons Foods and its related entities provide poultry products, feed components, and pet food items. The poultry segment primarily caters to prominent restaurant chains such as Chic-fil-a, Panda Express, Cheesecake Factory, Taco Bell, and KFC, while also offering co-packing services for labels like Great Value. Their Animal Nutrition division supplies feed ingredients to top-tier pet food companies including Blue Buffalo, Hills, Nestle, Mars, Champion, and Freshpet. The pet food segment focuses on fresh and canned offerings for more than twenty brands, including Great Value and Blue Buffalo, with manufacturing facilities located in Kansas, Iowa, and Arkansas. Simmons ranks among the United States’ largest producers of canned pet food, operating multiple business units across Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Kansas.

The formal corporate name is Simmons Foods, Inc. & Affiliates.

History

Established in 1949 by M.H. Bill Simmons, the company’s current chief executive officer is his grandson Todd Simmons.

After incorporation in 1984, Simmons Foods achieved substantial growth through acquisitions. In August 2010, the Pet Food division acquired Menu Foods for $239 million, adding production plants in Emporia, Kansas; Pennsauken, New Jersey; and Streetsville, Ontario. These facilities manufacture over one billion wet pet food containers annually and feature advanced packaging technology. That year marked $1 billion in revenue for the company.

An expansion at the Emporia facility was announced in 2014.

In 2017, an investment of approximately $30 million established an ingredient production plant in Siloam Springs dedicated to fresh and frozen meat ingredients for pet food manufacturers; a further $15 million investment expanded cooler capacity in 2022.

Also in 2017, Simmons Prepared Foods committed $300 million to construct a new chicken processing plant in Benton County, Arkansas. This project created around 1,500 jobs and commenced operations in 2019.

Later that same year, the Pet Food division revealed a $38 million expansion at Emporia that added 200,000 square feet of space and approximately 100 new positions.

By the end of 2021, Simmons discontinued its dry dog food and treat production at Siloam Springs to concentrate on more profitable canned and wet pet food lines.

In January 2022, the company announced a $100 million expansion at its Van Buren location to enhance prepared food output and increase workforce numbers from 600 to 700.

Manufacturing

Simmons Foods is structured into three main segments: Prepared Foods, Animal Nutrition, and Pet Food. Its production sites across the United States include locations in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, Emporia, Kansas, Edgerton, Kansas, Decatur, Arkansas, Gentry, Arkansas; Van Buren, Arkansas, Fort Smith, Arkansas, Milan, Missouri; Southwest City, Missouri; Quakertown, Pennsylvania; Bridgeville, Delaware; and Dubuque, Iowa. Additionally, the company maintains operations in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.

Personnel

As of 2022, Todd Simmons holds the positions of CEO and Vice Chairman, roles he took on in 2013 after beginning his tenure with the company in 1990. His leadership was acknowledged with an award from the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s “C-Suite Awards” in 2016. Mark Simmons has been Chairman since 1987 and initially joined Simmons Foods in 1968 following his graduation from the University of Arkansas. He assumed the presidency in 1974 after the passing of founder M.H. “Bill” Simmons and was honored with induction into the Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame in 2017.

Educational support

Since its inception in 1979, the M.H. "Bill" Simmons Scholarship Program has provided educational assistance to children of Simmons Foods employees. Over a span of more than four decades, it has distributed upwards of $1.1 million in scholarships for college and vocational training to over 1,000 students. In 2019 alone, the program awarded $134,000 to 72 scholars.

Controversy

On November 1, 2017, the ACLU of Oklahoma initiated a class action lawsuit against Simmons Foods and other entities on behalf of individuals involved in court-ordered Drug and Alcohol Recovery Programs in Oklahoma and Arkansas. The complaint alleged that Simmons knowingly profited from human trafficking and labor abuses. Investigations by Reveal and The Oklahoman reported that participants in these rehabilitation programs were assigned to work at Simmons facilities. Reveal’s findings asserted that Simmons depended significantly on this coerced labor force, indicating that plant production would be severely impacted without it. Comparable allegations resulted in litigation within Arkansas as well. On January 11, 2018, all claims directed at Simmons were voluntarily withdrawn. Later, on December 10, 2020, the U.S. District Court dismissed the case citing lack of jurisdiction; however, this ruling was overturned on May 1, 2023 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, which reinstated federal jurisdiction over the matter.

In 2022, Simmons Foods was named among nineteen corporations accused by Washington State’s Attorney General of participating in a scheme to artificially raise chicken prices.