Smithfield Foods Inc. (SFD) bid unsuccessfully to acquire Canada's Maple Leaf Foods Inc. (MFI.T) this spring prior to agreeing to a takeover by China's largest meat processor, according to a person familiar with the matter, highlighting the meat industry's intensifying push to consolidate amid sluggish growth in North America.

Smithfield on Tuesday said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it submitted an offer March 25 in connection with a "potential packaged meats acquisition," which was rejected "by the target on April 10." That target was Toronto-based packaged-foods company Maple Leaf, the person familiar with the matter said.

Virginia-based Smithfield, the world's biggest pork processor and hog farmer, said in Tuesday's filing that it had been contemplating since January a potentially significant acquisition of a large business in the packaged-meats sector. That was two months before it received an unsolicited takeover bid from Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd.

Smithfield bid for Maple Leaf within days of rejecting Shuanghui's first offer of $30 a share and receiving a sweetened $33-a-share offer, the proxy filing shows. Smithfield later agreed to a $34-a-share offer from Shuanghui in a $4.7 billion deal unveiled May 29.

Maple Leaf is a major producer of hogs, packaged meats and bakery products. In 2012, the company generated sales of C$4.86 billion. The company's brands include Maple Leaf and Schneiders, and it markets its products primarily in Canada, the U.S., Mexico and Japan.

Smithfield also received takeover offers this spring from Brazil's JBS SA, which has major beef and pork operations in the U.S. and Thailand's Charoen Pokphand Foods PCL as it weighed the approach from Shuanghui.

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