CHICAGO – Seaboard Foods was awarded the American Meat Institute’s (AMI) Edward C. Jones Community Service Award during the 2011 AMI Meat, Poultry & Seafood Convention and Exposition in Chicago, Ill. The award is named in honor of former AMI Board member, the late Edward C. Jones of Jones Dairy Farm, in Ft. Atkinson, Wis., who was a model of community service.

Seaboard’s generosity has been “wide-ranging,” said AMI Chairman Dennis Vignieri, president of Kenosha Beef International, in presenting the award.


Over a 10-year span, the company donated $450,000 to the Leoti, Kan., school system to provide technology to improve education. It also donated $100,000 to the Oklahoma State Univ. Swine Education and Research Center. Guymon, Okla., one of Seaboard’s plant communities, benefited from a $100,000 donation to build a new YMCA and Seiling, Okla., has new trees around the city thanks to Seaboard.

Seaboard Foods has also supported Ronald McDonald House, the American Cancer Society, Habitat for Humanity and the Chester, Okla. Historical Society, which replaced old playground equipment in the local park with Seaboard’s support.

“Seaboard encourages employees to get involved in civic organizations, such as local school boards, city councils and economic development boards,” Vignieri said. “And its president, Rod Brenneman, leads by example.”

Brenneman, who is also Seaboard’s CEO, and his wife, Shelley, have traveled on mission trips with their church where they have participated in community development projects. And following a devastating tornado in Greensburg, Kan. that destroyed the town’s high school just before graduation, the Brennemans traveled to Greensburg where their team had towed a cooker and served pork burgers and pork loins for the school’s graduation celebration.