Dive Brief:
- Smithfield Foods has achieved or surpassed all sustainability goals the company committed to in 2010 and is creating a new set of standards.
- Smithfield focused on several areas, including animal care, the environment, employees, food safety, and community assistance, while also creating a new corporate website that describes its sustainability practices in detail.
- Some of the company's new sustainability goals include completing conversion to group housing systems for pregnant sows, achieving 10% reduction in normalized water use and solid waste to landfill by 2020 and 5% reduction in normalized energy use and GHG emissions from a 2014 baseline, and having each facility participate in at least four community events per year.
Dive Insight:
Consumers say sustainability and transparency around sustainable practices is important. Many companies are making, meeting, and surpassing sustainability commitments, particularly when it comes to overhauling supply chains, such as Danone promising to sustainably sourced palm oil, Hershey, which is ahead of schedule for its goal of using 100% sustainable cocoa by 2020, and Kellogg requiring carbon emissions to be cut down in its own supply chain.