Pork carcasses, half carcasses, and primal and sub-primal cuts produced in slaughtering plants · South Dakota

Smithfield Foods

Sioux Falls, SD · ~3,459 workers · 8 years of OSHA Injury Tracking Application data.

B
Good Safety Record
2.6
Avg TCR
3.3
Industry avg
0
Fatalities

The verdict

Smithfield Foods runs at 80% of its industry's injury rate - safer than the typical Pork carcasses, half carcasses, and primal and sub-primal cuts produced in slaughtering plants workplace, earning a grade B.

B
Good Safety Record
2.6
avg TCR · per 100 workers
3.3
industry benchmark (BLS)
661
recordable injuries tracked

Grade compares Smithfield Foods's OSHA Total Case Rate of 2.6 to the Pork carcasses, half carcasses, and primal and sub-primal cuts produced in slaughtering plants BLS benchmark of 3.3 (80% of benchmark) across 8 years of Form 300A filings (2016–2024). <a href="/methodology">See methodology</a> for reporting-limitation caveats.

Injury rate over time

Smithfield Foods's yearly Total Case Rate, against the 3.3 industry benchmark.

1.522.533.5 20162018201920202021202220232024 3.33.3 Industry benchmarkSmithfield Foods TCR
Total Case Rate (recordable injuries per 100 full-time workers), OSHA ITA Form 300A. Industry benchmark: BLS IIF, NAICS 311611.

Where Smithfield Foods falls in its industry

216 Pork carcasses, half carcasses establishments

Safer than 83% of graded establishments in this industry, whose median TCR is 5.3.

More dangerous than peersSafer than peers

Narrower to South Dakota alone (the establishments it most directly competes with for workers and contracts): ranked #1 safest of 4 Pork carcasses, half carcasses employers in South Dakota.

Trend analysis for Smithfield Foods

Between 2016 and 2024, Smithfield Foods's Total Case Rate worsened from 2.6 to 3.3 recordable injuries per 100 full-time workers, a 28% increase across 8 years of OSHA reporting.

The safest year on record was 2018, at a TCR of 2.0, while 2024 saw the highest rate, at 3.3, a spread of 1.3 points between the best and worst reporting years. That's a wide swing relative to the establishment's overall rate, worth checking the year-by-year table below for whether a single severe year is driving the average, rather than a sustained trend.

Summed across those 8 reporting years, Smithfield Foods recorded 661 total injuries and illnesses, with no fatalities reported in any of those years. Readers comparing establishments should weigh the 8-year trend above alongside establishment size, since a larger workforce naturally accumulates more raw incidents even at a lower per-100-worker rate.

Verify This Employer with OSHA

The 661 injuries, 164 illnesses shown on this page for Smithfield Foods are sourced from its own 8 years of mandatory OSHA Form 300A summaries. Cross-check the underlying establishment record directly against the federal source, name, NAICS classification, recordable case totals, and inspection history are all searchable on OSHA's Establishment-Specific Injury and Illness Data system.

Verify on OSHA Establishment Search

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, OSHA Establishment-Specific Injury and Illness Data. NAICS 311611 - Pork carcasses, half carcasses, and primal and sub-primal cuts produced in slaughtering plants.

DART Rate, Transparent Calculation (2024)

What is the DART rate formula?

DART (Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred) is computed by OSHA as incidents × 200,000 ÷ hours worked. The 200,000-hour denominator equals roughly 100 full-time workers, which lets establishments of very different sizes be compared directly.

97 DART incidents × 200,000 ÷ 7,400,807 hours worked = 2.62 DART

Methodology: 29 CFR 1904, OSHA Form 300A recordkeeping

Cross-Validating Context, Establishment vs Industry vs State

Benchmark TCR Source
Smithfield Foods (this establishment) 2.63 OSHA ITA Form 300A, 8-year avg
Beef produced in slaughtering plants industry avg 3.30 BLS IIF, NAICS 311611
South Dakota state avg (all industries) 5.84 OSHA ITA, state-level rollup

Industry benchmarks: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities (IIF) program

Reportable Incident Timeline

Year-by-year reportable incidents (recordable injuries + illnesses + fatalities) submitted by Smithfield Foods to OSHA's Injury Tracking Application. Each row anchors to OSHA's inspection records search where you can pull the underlying inspection case numbers and citations for that establishment-year.

Source: OSHA Inspection Information System (IMIS) - inspection case-number records

Year-by-Year Safety Data

Year TCR DART Injuries Illnesses Fatalities
2024 3.3 2.6 94 28 0
2023 3.1 2.4 90 27 0
2022 2.6 1.6 82 16 0
2021 2.5 2.0 86 14 0
2020 2.4 1.8 77 16 0
2019 2.5 1.6 87 20 0
2018 2.0 1.3 64 19 0
2016 2.6 2.1 81 24 0

What this grade means for you

Use this grade as a relative read on Smithfield Foods's reported OSHA injury record, strong versus its Pork carcasses, half carcasses, and primal and sub-primal cuts produced in slaughtering plants peers, but not a guarantee about any single site today.

  • At 80% of the Pork carcasses, half carcasses, and primal and sub-primal cuts produced in slaughtering plants benchmark, Smithfield Foods reports fewer injuries than typical peers, still worth asking how safety is managed day to day. Know your rights
  • Judge this record against the wider Pork carcasses, half carcasses, and primal and sub-primal cuts produced in slaughtering plants sector, where injury rates vary widely, before comparing it in isolation. See the industry
  • Grades reflect 2016–2024 filings; check the latest establishment record straight from OSHA, or look up a different employer. Look up another

Safety grades reflect employers' self-reported OSHA Form 300A filings from 2016 to 2024 and can lag current conditions. A grade is not a guarantee that any specific workplace is safe or unsafe today. See our methodology and disclaimer.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Smithfield Foods's safety grade?
Smithfield Foods has a safety grade of B (Good Safety Record). This grade is based on their average Total Case Rate (TCR) of 2.6 compared to the BLS industry benchmark of 3.3 for Pork carcasses, half carcasses, and primal and sub-primal cuts produced in slaughtering plants.
How many injuries has Smithfield Foods reported?
Smithfield Foods has reported 661 total injuries and 0 fatalities across 8 years of OSHA data (2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2016). This data comes from mandatory OSHA Injury Tracking Application (ITA) reports.

Similar Employers

Matched by safety record across the industry, by workforce size within South Dakota, and by nearby establishments in Sioux Falls - a different peer set than the category browse links below.

Similar TCR (~2.6)

Similar size (~3,459 workers)

Nearby in Sioux Falls

Data Source: OSHA Injury Tracking Application (ITA), mandatory establishment-level injury/illness reports. Grades compare employer Total Case Rate (TCR) to BLS IIF industry benchmarks. Data covers years reported by this establishment: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2016. This is publicly available government data - not a legal determination of workplace conditions.

Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.

Data sourced from official public datasets. See our methodology for details. Retrieved and formatted by PlainSafetyScore Editorial

Every figure and grade on PlainSafetyScore is computed directly from OSHA's published Injury Tracking Application data and BLS industry benchmarks, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these safety grades, or report a data error. Data current as of 2016-2024 OSHA ITA release.