Smithfield Foods CEO to retire in early 2021

(Reuters) - Smithfield Foods Inc, the world's largest pork processor, said on Monday its President and Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Sullivan will retire in early 2021 after five years at the helm.

The company, owned by China's WH Group Ltd <0288.HK>, also said Dennis Organ, chief operating officer of its U.S. operations, would replace Sullivan as the CEO and president.

Organ joined Smithfield in 2010 and has been in his current role since 2019.

The first four years of Sullivan's tenure marked the highest profit periods in the company's history, Smithfield said, before the COVID-19 pandemic hurt its business due in part to coronavirus outbreaks at some of its plants.

(Reporting by Praveen Paramasivam in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)