Hormel Dialogue
On Feb. 8th, I participated in a shareholder meeting in New York with Hormel Foods, along with representatives of a number of other socially concerned institutions. Hormel is one of the largest meatpacking companies in the US. Our main intent was to engage the company about the environmental sustainability of their operations and discuss their 2007 corporate responsibility report. The Hormel team included their VP of communications, their plant operations manager, and an outside consultant. We covered topics including antibiotics, animal cloning, water use, contract farms, employee benefits and diversity, and developing a GHG emissions inventory.
Probably the most positive part of the meeting was our discussion of water and energy efficiency in their processing plants. Hormel has come to recognize the importance of conservation, and is looking at new ways to improve their operational efficiency. In fact, their newest factory will be a LEED certified green building. Part of Hormel’s focus on greener processing facilities stems from the recent Southeast drought. The company has a plant in Atlanta and the record drought there forced them to conserve water. The techniques they used to achieve water efficiency can now be used in their other plants.
Hormel has largely followed the agribusiness industry in supporting the use of antibiotics, and it is not against the use of cloned animals for food. However, they are putting these issues on the table for discussion. One of the worst environmental problems of the meat industry involves concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO). These are the feedlots and factory farms that supply the meat industry with animals for slaughter. Unfortunately, we are unable to address CAFOs because Hormel does not own or control them – contracted farmers do. We are looking at ways to address this situation.
Overall, Hormel has come a long way in a few short years – from ignoring shareholders’ environmental and social concerns to addressing some of them in their business plan – and we will encourage them to continue pursuing sustainable operations.
