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.
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