Meat & Poultry Briefs: Hormel Foods Corp., Austin, Minn., said Gary Ray, president of the company's protein units, and Russell Potter, vice president of operations-grocery products division, will retire effective Dec. 31, 2008. Afterward, Hormel said that Steven Binder, refrigerated foods group vice president, and Michael Tolbert, president of Jennie-O Turkey Store, will report directly to Jeffrey Ettinger, chairman, president and chief executive officer. James Snee, director of purchasing, has been named vice president for the refrigerated foods segment's affiliated units, effective Oct. 27, 2008. Hormel said Melanie Faust will succeed Snee as director of purchasing. . . . Citing record feed costs, the Nebraska Turkey Growers Cooperative, Gibbon, Neb., said it plans to close its Gibbon turkey processing plant this December for an indefinite period. The operation employs 225 full-time workers and processes more than 20,000 turkeys per day.