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Solid Waste Management

We focus efforts on increasing recycling and reducing solid waste.

Two years ago, we set aggressive goals to improve recycling at all 41 U.S. manufacturing facilities to 40 percent by November 2008 and 50 percent by November 2011. We are restating this goal to focus on solid waste reduction. Our new goal is to reduce solid waste to landfills by 2 percent per year through 2012, which adds emphasis to the importance of eliminating waste at its source. We will still monitor our recycling efforts to maximize the amount of waste that we can eliminate from landfills.

We know that raising the level of awareness about recycling among employees directly impacts the amount we recycle at a facility. As a result of increased communications about the importance of waste minimization, our Hormel Foods Plant in Austin, MN, has increased recycling from 33 percent to 41 percent from fiscal year 2007 to fiscal year 2008.

To date, we are diverting more than 55 percent of waste from the landfill through recycling and the land spreading of by-products to be used as a soil nutrient by farmers. Approximately half of our turkey litter is sent to an electric production facility in central Minnesota as biomass fuel. The remaining turkey litter is being used by farmers as a fertilizer replacement.

Recycling

The initial goal at Hormel Foods was to increase recycling to 40 percent of total waste by November 2008. We reached 32 percent by November 2008. When the goal of recycling 40 percent of total waste was established in 2007, we reported on 18 plants. Of those 18 plants, 10 exceeded the goal; recycling as much as 58 percent in one plant. As previously noted, we have restated our goal to focus on solid waste reduction, but we will continue to work toward the long-term goal of maximizing our recycling effort. We continue to look for opportunities to increase recycling of difficult materials such as meat casings, vat covers and liners and packaging film scrap.

Commitment is part of our employees’ everyday lives at Hormel Foods and we are confident that our innovative spirit will impel our employees to develop new ways to recycle even more.

Packaging Reduction Efforts

In addition to recycling, we work to reduce our packaging. We do this through collaborating across the company to come up with innovative solutions and by partnering with our packaging suppliers. Hormel uses more than 60,000 different materials to package and produce our products. About 80 percent of our product packaging is recyclable and/or made from recycled materials.

Each member of our packaging group has undertaken the initiative to identify two major packaging improvement projects related to sustainability. The packaging team works with other departments and examines the entire supply chain for initiatives related to sustainability that benefit all divisions.

Because of the breadth of input materials used in production and packaging, we do not report on the total weight of materials used throughout the company, but our goal is to reduce packaging by 4 million pounds by the end of the 2009 calendar year. In 2008, we initiated 77 total projects and completed 44 projects. Combined, these projects resulted in 5.2 million pounds in savings. There are more than 30 active projects as of October 2008, and we will report on the amount of reduction of waste from these projects in the next corporate responsibility report.

Packaging Initiatives

Specific projects that have reduced packaging include:

• Grocery Products — Three-ply lidding saved 383,000 pounds of waste annually;
• Jennie-O Turkey Store — A review of shipping containers at our Willmar, MN, plant produced an annual savings of 358,000 pounds of corrugated boxes;
• Party Trays — Redesigned corrugated case to save 185,000 pounds or 1,119 pallets annually; and
• SPAM^® family of products — Changed the type of plastic wrap that bundles the product together when being shipped to save 32,400 pounds annually.

About 38 percent of the company’s packaging reductions are based on sustainable packaging projects. The remaining results come from new technologies, technical advances in materials, optimizing costs with suppliers, improved efficiencies in processes and implementing new efficient operations.

Collaboration with Suppliers

The packaging group works with suppliers to be environmentally focused and requires suppliers to meet with Hormel Foods at least once a year to discuss solutions to reduce packaging. Internally, we want each supplier to provide our teams environmentally friendly options. They are engaged in helping us achieve our goals of reducing packaging. One way we are asking suppliers to play an active role in reducing our footprint is by packaging materials in shrink bags instead of in corrugated boxes.