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About This Report
As a multinational manufacturer and marketer of high-quality, brand-name food and meat products, we like to say we are “rooted in integrity; guided by innovation.” In other words, corporate responsibility is a part of our heritage and our everyday work. This report provides information on our benchmarks, progress made and our future goals.
Topics in this section include:
Changes and Updates
To help readers of the report understand the major differences between this year’s report and past reports, we developed a “delta” to overview what has changed in the report based on section.
At Hormel Foods, we are always looking for ways to make this information more accessible and transparent, so please provide feedback of how we can do that by taking this brief survey.
| Section |
Changes/Updates |
| People |
- Additional information on the company’s involvement in e-Verify
- Information about adherence to federal workplace rights programs
- Employee engagement data and process
- Information about the company’s Wellness Our Way program
|
Process
(Animal Care, Environment, Supply Chain) |
- New Supply Chain subsection containing an explanation and diagram of our supply chain and our approach to holding suppliers accountable to the company’s Principles Platform
- Extensive information about packaging reduction efforts
- Updated information about the results of our antibiotic residue testing in our Austin, MN Plant
|
| Products |
- Explanation of our product development process, detailing how consumer feedback is included and how decisions are made
- Discussion about the company’s use of health additives and GMO policy
- Information about product labeling procedures, as it relates to accuracy and safety, and the use of Modified Atmosphere Packaging
- More information about the responsible marketing standards we follow
|
| Performance |
- Information about public policy involvement
- Lobbying financial disclosures
- Information about international operations, including emerging markets
|
| Philanthropy |
- Updated giving numbers for 2009
- Updated findings on hunger perception in America
|
| Goals |
- Updates on progress toward goals
- New goals for improving employee safety, developing supplier
responsibility principles, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and
increasing philanthropic contributions
|
The Content
Within this report you can read about our environmental performance, employee training, product safety and our future goals, among other topics. The report is divided into five categories, which align with our internal values: people, products, process, performance and philanthropy.
In 2008, we put the report entirely online for the first time, understanding it would reduce the amount of paper being used for a printed report and allow stakeholders the opportunity to explore the report in a new way.
For the 2009 report, we continued the online version and are offering a way for stakeholders to print a PDF of the entire text version. We are providing this option for analysts and reviewers who find it easier to delve into the report’s content when it is all in one place.
We also expanded the printed Executive Summary to provide stakeholders a thorough snapshot of information. Click here to view the PDF version.
Learning
To help us continue to improve the usefulness and relevancy of this report, we invite readers to share thoughts in the Feedback section.
As part of our ongoing reporting, we continue to benchmark against industry peers and best practices in the area of corporate responsibility in order to determine key issues and topics important to our stakeholders.
The report was compiled using the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G3 Guidelines, which provide a recommended framework and indicators for reporting. To view the full list of indicators included within this report, visit the Content Index section. We are reporting at a GRI-checked application level of “A." More information on the G3 Guidelines and application levels is available at http://www.globalreporting.org. In addition to GRI, the report was reviewed extensively by subject-matter experts and many of our top executives.
