GENERAL

9 Months Ended

Sep. 26, 2021

Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]

Business

Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation (referred to herein as “Pilgrim’s,” “PPC,” “the Company,” “we,” “us,” “our,” or similar terms) is one of the largest chicken producers in the world, with operations in the United States (“U.S.”), the United Kingdom (“U.K.”), Mexico, France, Puerto Rico, the Netherlands and Ireland. Pilgrim’s products are sold to foodservice, retail and frozen entrée customers. The Company’s primary distribution is through retailers, foodservice distributors and restaurants throughout the countries listed above. Additionally, the Company exports chicken and pork products to approximately 124 countries. Pilgrim’s fresh products consist of refrigerated whole chickens, whole cut-up chickens, both marinated and non-marinated chicken parts, primary pork cuts, value-added pork and pork ribs. The Company’s prepared products include fully cooked, ready-to-cook and individually-frozen chicken parts, strips, nuggets and patties, processed sausages, bacon, smoked meat, gammon joints, pre-packed meats, sandwich and deli counter meats and meat balls. The Company’s other products include plant-based protein offerings, ready-to-eat meals, multi-protein frozen foods, vegetarian foods and desserts. The Company also provides direct-to-consumer meals and hot food-to-go solutions in the U.K. and Ireland. We operate feed mills, hatcheries, processing plants and distribution centers in 14 U.S. states, the U.K., Mexico, France, Puerto Rico, the Netherlands and Ireland. As of September 26, 2021, Pilgrim’s had approximately 58,900 employees. As of September 26, 2021, PPC had the capacity to process approximately 43.7 million birds per work week for a total of more than 13.7 billion pounds of live chicken annually. Approximately 4,800 contract growers supply chicken for the Company’s operations. As of September 26, 2021, PPC had the capacity to process approximately 44,300 pigs per work week for a total of 445.1 million pounds of live pork annually and approximately 285 contract growers supply pork for the Company’s operations. As of September 26, 2021, JBS S.A., through its indirect wholly-owned subsidiaries (together, “JBS”), beneficially owned 80.2% of the Company’s outstanding common stock.

Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements

The accompanying unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements of the Company have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the U.S. (“U.S. GAAP”) for interim financial information and with the instructions to Form 10-Q and Article 10 of Regulation S-X of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). Accordingly, they do not include all of the information and footnotes required by U.S. GAAP for complete financial statements. In the opinion of management, all adjustments (consisting of normal and recurring adjustments unless otherwise disclosed) considered necessary for a fair presentation have been included. Operating results for the nine months ended September 26, 2021 are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected for the year ending December 26, 2021. For further information, refer to the consolidated financial statements and notes thereto included in the Company’s annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 27, 2020.

The Company operates on the basis of a 52/53 week fiscal year ending on the Sunday falling on or before December 31. Any reference we make to a particular year (for example, 2021) in the notes to these Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements applies to our fiscal year and not the calendar year. The three months ended September 26, 2021 represents the period from June 28, 2021 through September 26, 2021. The nine months ended September 26, 2021 represents the period from December 28, 2020 through September 26, 2021. The three months ended September 27, 2020 represents the period from June 29, 2020 through September 27, 2020. The nine months ended September 27, 2020 represents the period from December 30, 2019 through September 27, 2020.

The Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements include the accounts of the Company and its majority-owned subsidiaries. We eliminate all significant affiliate accounts and transactions upon consolidation.

The Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements have been prepared in conformity with U.S. GAAP using management’s best estimates and judgments. These estimates and judgments affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosure of the contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements. The estimates and judgments will also affect the reported amounts for certain revenues and expenses during the reporting period. Actual results could differ materially from these estimates and judgments. Significant estimates made by the Company include the allowance for doubtful accounts, reserves related to inventory obsolescence or valuation, useful lives of long-lived assets, goodwill, valuation of deferred tax assets, insurance accruals, valuation of pension and other postretirement benefits obligations, income tax accruals, certain derivative positions, certain litigation reserves and valuations of acquired businesses.

The functional currency of the Company’s U.S. and Mexico operations and certain holding-company subsidiaries in Luxembourg, the U.K., Malta and Ireland is the U.S. dollar. The functional currency of its U.K. operations is the British pound. The functional currency of the Company’s operations in France, the Netherlands and Ireland is the euro. For foreign currency-denominated entities other than the Company’s Mexico operations, translation from local currencies into U.S. dollars is performed for most assets and liabilities using the exchange rates in effect as of the balance sheet date. Income and expense accounts are remeasured using average exchange rates for the period. Adjustments resulting from translation of these financial records are reflected as a separate component of Accumulated other comprehensive income (loss) in the Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets. For the Company’s Mexico operations, remeasurement from the Mexican peso to U.S. dollars is performed for monetary assets and liabilities using the exchange rate in effect as of the balance sheet date. Remeasurement is performed for non-monetary assets using the historical exchange rate in effect on the date of each asset’s acquisition. Income and expense accounts are remeasured using average exchange rates for the period. Net adjustments resulting from remeasurement of these financial records, as well as foreign currency transaction gains and losses, are reflected in Foreign currency transaction loss (gain) in the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Income.

Restricted Cash

The Company is required to maintain cash balances with a broker as collateral for exchange traded futures contracts. These balances are classified as restricted cash as they are not available for use by the Company to fund daily operations. The balance of restricted cash may also include investments in U.S. Treasury Bills that qualify as cash equivalents, as required by the broker, to offset the obligation to return cash collateral.

The following table reconciles cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash as reported in the Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets to the total of the same amounts shown in the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows:


	September 26, 2021		December 27, 2020
	(In thousands)
Cash and cash equivalents	$	511,084	$	547,624
Restricted cash	54,111		782
Total cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash shown in the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows	$	565,195	$	548,406

Recent Accounting Pronouncements Adopted as of December 28, 2020

In December 2019, the FASB issued ASU 2019-12, Simplifying the Accounting for Income Taxes, which is intended to improve consistency and simplify several areas of existing guidance. ASU 2019-12 removes certain exceptions to the general principles related to the approach for intraperiod tax allocation, the methodology for calculating income taxes in an interim period and the recognition of deferred tax liabilities for outside basis differences. The new guidance also clarifies the accounting for transactions that result in a step-up in the tax basis of goodwill. The adoption of this guidance did not have a material impact on our financial statements.

In January 2020, the FASB issued ASU 2020-01, Clarifying the Interactions between Topic 321, Topic 323, and Topic 815, which clarifies that an entity should consider observable transactions that require it to either apply or discontinue the equity method of accounting for the purposes of applying the measurement alternative in accordance with Topic 321 immediately before applying or upon discontinuing the equity method. This update also specifies that for the purpose of applying paragraph 815-10-15-1419(a) an entity should not consider whether, upon the settlement of the forward contract or exercise of the purchased option, individually or with existing investments, the underlying securities would be accounted for under the equity method in Topic 323 or the fair value option in accordance with the financial instruments guidance in Topic 825. The entity also would evaluate the remaining characteristics in paragraph 815-10-15-141 to determine the accounting for those forward contracts and purchased options. The adoption of this guidance did not have a material impact on our financial statements.

In October 2020, the FASB issued ASU 2020-10, Codification Improvements, which provided codification updates for technical corrections such as conforming amendments, clarifications to guidance, simplifications to wording or structure of guidance, and other minor improvements. Additionally, changes to clarify the codification or correct unintended application of guidance that are not expected to have a significant effect on current accounting practice or create a significant administrative cost to most entities were also included in this update. The adoption of this guidance did not have a material impact on our financial statements.

Recent Accounting Pronouncements Not Yet Adopted as of September 26, 2021

In March 2020, the FASB issued ASU 2020-04, Reference Rate Reform (Topic 848): Facilitation of the Effects of Reference Rate Reform on Financial Reporting, which provides optional expedients and exceptions to the application of current GAAP to existing contracts, hedging relationships and other transactions affected by reference rate reform. The new guidance will ease the transition to new reference rates by allowing entities to update contracts and hedging relationships without applying many of the contract modification requirements specific to those contracts. The provisions of the new guidance will be effective beginning March 12, 2020, extending through December 31, 2022 with the option to apply the guidance at any point during that time period. In January 2021, the FASB issued ASU 2021-01, Reference Rate Reform (Topic 848), which provides further clarification on the scope of Topic 848 so that derivatives affected by the discounting transition are explicitly eligible for certain optional expedients and exceptions in Topic 848. Once an entity elects an expedient or exception it must be applied to all eligible contracts or transactions. We currently have hedging transactions and debt agreements that reference LIBOR and will apply the new guidance as these contracts are modified to reference other rates.