Keystone Foods Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Keystone Foods full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Good but deteriorating benefits.
Good working environment.
Outstanding middle management

Cons – 2 layoffs in 2 1/2 years.
no communication from upper management
no direction from upper management
Conflicting and confusing prorites from upper management

Advice to Senior Management – Learn how to make a decision and stick with it - quit changing direction or priorities 'as the wind blows'. Follow through on what you tell employees. Quit trying to turn an outstanding company with benefits and operations that attract the top tier people into an average company with average benefits that attracts average people.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Keystone Foods full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Better than average healthcare, bonus, & retirement. Nice (but quickly declining) perks. Comfortable office & working conditions. Friendly coworkers.

Cons – Poor\absent leadership. Parent company (Marfrig, Brazil) is the role model for what not to do when buying and (trying to) integrate the acquired company. Benefits and working conditions quickly deteriorating. Very slow to change and adopt progressive trends and culture.

Advice to Senior Management – Given the current business challenges and poor employee morale you'd think there would be a stronger attempt by senior leadership to stabilize and communicate. The absence of strong and confident leadership (and communication) conveys a very bad message to the dedicated and talented workforce.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Keystone Foods full-time

Pros – Free lunches. Adding more words because of 5 word minimum. No other pros...

Cons – Very uptight environment wrapped around a frenzy of political issues. over 13 management members have left in the past 12 months and many more will be leaving.

The new management team is sweeping house to appease a broken relationship with their biggest customer, McDonald's.

The company is not looking to develop employees and retain them, just seeing how they can stop the bleeding.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Keystone Foods full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – This used to be a very people centered caring company, especially when the original owner was involved and his successor. Benefits are still better than most companies.

Cons – This company is moving toward a less people centered caring environment. Dealing with the new owners is challenging.

Advice to Senior Management – Employees will work harder for you if you show appreciation for what they contribute. Start taking away those forms of appreciation and watch quality suffer.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Keystone Foods full-time

Pros – Keystone Foods is very good at what they do, which is process high quality poultry and beef (think McNuggets and Quarterpounders) for the fast food industry, namely McDonalds (which is about 80% of their business).

Cons – The parent company, Marfrig of Brazil, is a VERY poorly run company. They make it up as they go along, which leads to dishonest and unethical practices. They have a "we are smarter than everyone else" attitude that doesn't mix well with others. The leader of Marfrig is imperialistic, with a management style stuck back in the early 50's. Indeed, this is a case of "the emperor has no clothes."

Advice to Senior Management – Keystone's current senior management is what remains after the long time CEO, Jerry Dean, retired in 2011 and his successor, Larry McWilliams (a highly competent leader who spent several years at well run companies like Campbell Soup and Coke) was fired by Marfrig without warning in April of 2012. Those in place now are puppets to the Marfrig organization. Keystone Foods will not be a great place to work until Marfrig sells them off.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Keystone Foods

Pros – Good pay and benefits are better than most companies. Free drinks and lots of miscellanuous perks for all employees in the warehouse.

Cons – Never able to start work on time, systems are always backed up and waiting on the other departments. Supervisors don't supervise, they end up having to work since they hire lazy people. Drivers always complain and never get feedback on when you do something good. Always asking/telling you to stay overtime, even if you can't. No work/life balance and they run you into the ground...every day.

Advice to Senior Management – Hire new upper mgmt who know what is going on and leave the ivory tower. Hold employees accountable and get rid of the poor performers, before they become a cancer within the organization.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Keystone Foods

Pros – The benefits were top of the line for this area.. The people who work there, employees very friendly.
The bonuses for the employees .
 I loved my job at Equity and had plans on retiring there. It was one of the best company's to work for I have ever been employed with. The company did management cut backs and downsized Manager jobs. This was very unfortunate for the Managers involved. Their dreams of a future were taken away in a instance.

Cons – The communication is terrible. You feel like you are working for the CIA. Everything is a secret, unless you are upper management. Lower level management is not kept informed of what is going on. They do not appreciate a job well done by employees. They have no respect for ethics. When I first started for the company several years ago, your conduct mattered at work and away from work. Now it is not that way. Most of the practices of upper management are unethical. Most of the upper management do not follow company policies either. I always thought that manager relations should be professional, but they are not. Several years ago, this company was well respected throughout the community, but know it is not because of many of the issues listed above.
 I always thought that the treatment of the employees was top priority, but now I know it is not.
Safety is suppose to be the number one job priority, but in the past year, even that has been lacking tremendously. This is sad for all involved.
 The past 2 years there were no salary increases for management.

Advice to Senior Management – Talk to people , even lower management employees. They will tell you that everything has changed, and it is not for the better. Get feedback from them, don't settle for reports from senior staff. Pay competitive wages. We were always told that we could not be payed the expected salary of other poultry processing managers because of where we were located.
If you take care of everyone , they will work hard for the company.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Keystone Foods

Pros – Fantastic benefits, nice/caring work environment, free breakfast and lunch

Cons – Old school HR mentality for raises, new hires get much more money though they don't have the competence of some internal employees who might have done a better job.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep up the good work - but remember to reward lower level employees with promotions.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Keystone Foods full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – The benefits are very good and exceed industry standards in many areas! Excellent safety record and the continued focus on safety is great.

Cons – People focused culture is changing due to new ownership.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend