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Health & Wellness
Hormel Foods offers a variety of products that meet consumers’ needs for lower-sodium and all-natural products.
Topics in this section include:
Sodium
While sodium is a functional ingredient for taste, preservation and food safety, we have established a goal to lower sodium levels in all products. Our focus is for a single serving to only have one-third of the recommended daily amount of sodium. Contributing to this achievement was the focus of our Grocery Products division that has established a target to reduce the sodium levels in all existing products to less than 1,000 milligrams per serving and to introduce all new products following this standard.
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Health Benefits from Our Products
The health benefit of eating high-quality, protein-rich foods is well documented as a way to obtain necessary nutrition. Hormel Foods offers low-fat protein options full of flavor.
Approximately 40 percent of the innovation results at Hormel Foods are products falling under our health and wellness initiative. Product lines such as Hormel® Natural Choice® meats, the green label Hormel® Compleats® microwave meals and Jennie-O Turkey Store® items have proven to be popular with consumers.
In addition to products available to consumers, Hormel Foods has developed offerings for restaurants that include recipes with less than 500 calories.
Several of our products have been recognized for their healthy attributes:
- Hormel® chili and Hormel® Natural Choice® deli meats were named in Men’s Health magazine’s Top 125 Best Grocery Foods.
- Women’s Health magazine Best 125 Best Packaged Foods for Women named Best Turkey to Jennie-O®. Applewood Smoked Turkey Breast Tenderloin, Best Pork to Hormel® Natural Choice® Parmesan Crust Pork Loin Filet and Best Canned Meat to Valley Fresh® 100 percent Natural White Chicken.
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Responsible Marketing
As reported in the past, we market our products through a variety of efforts but do not target children with advertisements.
We are members of the Association of National Advertisers, which works on behalf of marketers on policies, regulations and other issues affecting members. Advertising done by or on behalf of Hormel Foods complies with the advertising industry's self-regulation system of codes. These guidelines complement government regulations and legislation, and are self-imposed.
There are no incidents of noncompliance with regulations or voluntary codes concerning marketing communications to report for fiscal year 2009.
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Continuous Improvement
It is important we understand consumers’ tastes, ideas and concerns in order to continue producing flavorful, nutritious and quality products. As part of product development, we evaluate the nutritional value of a product during the creation phase.
In addition to reformulating our products for health and nutrition reasons, we have a multi-faceted approach to product development that we explain more in the innovation section.
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Health, additives and ingredients
To produce the different products in our portfolio requires using a variety of ingredients and additives.
Ingredients
Advancement in technology continues to change many of our ingredients, which includes the crop and vegetable items in many of our products.
We are sensitive to consumer preferences and regularly review research related to developments in plant genetics and continue to see significantly improved crop productivity and food quality. The adoption of biotechnology has benefited the consumer and food industry by helping to stabilize crop production, reduce grain costs and improve the nutritional content of foods while protecting our environment.
Genetically modified crops have undergone exhaustive testing and have been approved by the United States Department of Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency. To this end, all ingredients used by Hormel Foods are Generally Recognized As Safe and comply with food safety and nutrition regulations. Visit the Food and Drug Administration
website for more information
Additives
When considering the use of health additives, a group of nutritionists at Hormel Foods first monitors peer-reviewed studies to study the additive or ingredient under consideration. Then, we also conduct our own research.
We have developed products at Hormel Health Labs that use additives to meet special dietary needs. For example, some of our products help individuals with dysphasia, hepatic aid and high-caloric products needs.
Natural
We know there are consumers who seek food without preservatives and that are minimally processed. To that end, we pioneered a way to use HPP for protein products and developed our Hormel® Natural Choice® products. By using this application, this product stays fresh without the need for preservatives, artificial ingredients, nitrates or nitrites. Because of this, consumers receive these benefits:
- Enhances Flavor: Food boasts its most natural flavors because no flavor-changing preservatives are added.
- Maintains Freshness: HPP protects against spoilage-causing bacteria, producing food that stays fresher longer.
- Protects Naturally: Food is preserved using water pressure, not preservatives.
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