Hormel Foods Corporation

Hormel Foods Corporation is a packaged-food company people meet through meat, pantry staples and convenience foods, from deli-style products to canned and prepared items. By our assessment, its strength is obvious: it knows how to turn familiar American food into shelf-stable, widely distributed brands. That also creates the usual downside of the category, because processed and packaged food can feel formulaic and heavily branded rather than fresh. In practice, Hormel is about repetition, long supermarket presence and products that fit into lunchboxes, sandwiches and quick meals. It sits above small niche makers in reach and recognition, but it is not trying to be a gourmet outfit, and that is clear from the way it sells everyday food at industrial scale.