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Home > CSR > 2008 > Process > Animal Welfare > Hogs
Overview of Hog Operations
In 2008, we opened a state-of-the-art hog holding facility at the plant in Austin, MN, that improved animal welfare and working conditions for employees.
Hormel Foods secures hogs from more than 775 independent family farmers across the Midwest and three company-owned operations in Arizona, Colorado and Wyoming.
At our company-owned farms, we currently have breeding sows that are housed in stalls. We continue to monitor science-based research and industry best practices, which continue to support both stalls and group pens for sows.
We are moving toward group sow housing at our operations in Arizona before 2013 and Colorado before 2018.
Pork Procurement and Processing
In 2008, we opened a state-of-the-art hog holding facility at the plant in Austin, MN, that improved animal welfare and working conditions for employees.
Each year, three pork processing operations process about 9.3 million hogs to provide the company with raw materials. These locations include Farmer John in Vernon, CA; the Hormel Foods plant in Fremont, NE, and Quality Pork Processors Inc. in Austin, MN, which is a third-party contractor. The raw materials are then distributed to locations across the United States and used to produce meat and food products. Plants are located across the United States in areas such as Stockton, CA; Atlanta, GA; Algona, Knoxville and Osceola, IA; Aurora and Rochelle, IL; Wichita, KS; Austin, Browerville and Long Prairie, MN; Fremont, NE; and Beloit, WI.
For the Hormel Foods plants in Austin, MN, and Fremont, NE, we purchase hogs from independent producers from across the Midwest. These hogs are purchased using the lean pork value table, and we pay a premium for properly sorted, consistent, lean hogs that meet the stringent requirements at Hormel Foods. These requirements ensure that hogs purchased by Hormel Foods are healthy, top quality animals and, therefore, have been properly managed and treated well.
To ensure the requirements at Hormel Foods for animal handling and welfare are upheld, the majority of our hogs are purchased via contractual agreements. In the contract, each hog producer agrees to comply with local, state and federal laws and qualifications outlined in the Hormel Foods Quality Assurance Program, which includes an animal welfare and handling component. In addition to producers who supply hogs to Hormel Foods, we also require all employees who work with hogs at our three company-owned hog operations to follow these guidelines. Our program includes:
- All producers who supply hogs to Hormel Foods, and the employees of these producers, will be certified in the National Pork Board’s PQA Plus® program by Dec. 31, 2009. To achieve certification, producers must attend an educational and training session taught by a PQA Plus® advisor — a veterinarian, Extension personnel or an adult agricultural educator. The class content focuses on food safety, animal well-being, herd health and medication decision-making, administration and records management.
- All sites where a producer raises hogs supplied to Hormel Foods must achieve Site Status as defined by the PQA Plus® program by Dec. 31, 2009. This on-farm assessment evaluates care and well-being principles. Once PQA Plus® Site Status is achieved, this site becomes eligible for a random third-party audit. This statistically valid sample of audits validates the PQA Plus® program.
- All producers, employees of producers and individuals who transport hogs to the company will have Transport Quality Assurance® (TQA®) certification by Dec. 31, 2009. This program was originally developed by Hormel Foods before being adopted as the industry standard. The training materials cover the responsible way to treat and handle animals during loading, transportation and delivery. Handlers are taught to recognize a hog’s flight zones and points of balance to aid in hog movement. Achieving TQA® certification requires attending an educational and training session and scoring a 90 percent or better on a written exam.
We recognize hog producers who exemplify the commitment to quality at Hormel Foods through our annual Spirit of Excellence Awards. These awards reward suppliers that consistently meet the company’s stringent requirements. The award was received by 24 and 29 independent hog producers in fiscal year 2007 and 2008, respectively.