Hormel Foods Corp. announced its 44th consecutive annual dividend increase Tuesday, as the annual dividend on common stock of the corporation raised to $.84 per share from $.76 per share.

The Board of Directors authorized the quarterly divident on the common stock at 21 cents a share. The 326th consecutive quarterly dividend will be paid Feb. 15, 2010, to stockholders of record at the close of business on Jan. 23, 2010.

Since Hormel became a public company in 1928, the corporation has paid a regular quarterly dividend without interruption.

Hormel is expected to announce it’s fourth quarter earnings Tuesday morning.

Many other companies are releasing earnings this week. Meat products producer Tyson Foods Inc. announced a loss in the fourth quarter on Monday.

The company’s sales rose from last year as quarterly sales were $7.21 billion — higher than the previous year’s sales of $7.20 billion.

Tyson’s pork sales decreased to $865 million from $1.00 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Tyson’s beef products sales declined to $2.97 billion from $3.10 billion in the same quarter last year. That segment recorded an operating loss of $440 million, compared to a profit of $159 million in the same quarter last year.