Hormel Foods Names John Ghingo as New CEO

HRL named John Ghingo chief executive officer on July 28, completing a succession that has been mapped out for more than a year. Ghingo takes the role from Jeffrey Ettinger, who returned to the company he previously led to serve a defined 15-month interim term.

The handoff is the endpoint of a plan announced in June 2025, when Hormel elevated Ghingo to president, the eleventh person to hold that title in the company's nearly 135-year history, and installed Ettinger as interim CEO. Both took up their roles on July 14, 2025. Ghingo joined Hormel in 2024 to run the retail business before adding foodservice and international to his remit as president.

Because the interim arrangement was time-boxed from the start, this is a scheduled transition rather than a surprise, which limits the read-through for strategy. The more useful signal is what Ghingo does with the packaged-food portfolio he inherits: a business facing soft center-store volumes, elevated protein input costs and a consumer trading down across branded categories.

Watch the first full quarter under Ghingo for any change in promotional posture or portfolio pruning, and for whether the company reiterates the turnaround targets set during the interim period.

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