Pork and turkey processing giant Smithfield Foods, Smithfield, Va., said it closed its Smithfield Innovation Group, a five-person unit dedicated to new product development. Smithfield created the business with the 2003 purchase of Global Culinary Solutions Inc., Buffalo Grove, Ill.

Smithfield said closing the business (once billed as a “culinary think tank”) was one of “many recent cost-reduction efforts.” Officials said “new product development activity [is] continuing at its usual pace” within Smithfield’s independent operating companies.