Greeley – Meat processor Swift & Co.’s net sales declined 6.9 percent to $2.09 billion in the third quarter, the company reported Tuesday, saying it is recovering from production declines caused by December immigration raids in Greeley and at plants in five other states.
Sam Rovit, Swift’s president and chief executive officer, said pork production returned to normal in March and beef production was expected to recover by summer.
He said the company is also benefiting from cost and operational improvements.
“We are well on our way to a full recovery,” Rovit said in a statement.
The privately owned company said Swift Beef sales declined 15.8 percent in the three months ended Feb. 25, while Swift Australia sales rose 14 percent and Swift Pork sales rose 2.9 percent.
The company said it lost $9 million in the third quarter, compared with a $30 million loss in the same period a year ago.
Swift said in January it was looking into a range of strategies, from refinancing to a sale to taking the company public. Executives said they began reviewing options after they received unsolicited inquiries.
The Dec. 12 immigration raids hit Swift plants in Greeley; Grand Island, Neb.; Cactus, Texas; Hyrum, Utah; Marshalltown, Iowa; and Worthington, Minn.
Federal agents arrested 1,282 workers. Nearly 250 face state or federal identity theft charges and the rest face immigration charges.
In January, Swift said its preliminary estimate of the one- time impact of the raids included $20 million, mostly in lost efficiencies as new employees are retrained, plus up to $10 million to retain workers and offer hiring incentives to add more.
