Living Out Our Principles: Process
At Jennie-O Turkey Store’s feed mills, even a sunflower shell doesn’t go to waste.
Through partnerships with manufacturers and other companies in the Minnesota and Wisconsin area, the company reuses materials such as sunflower hulls, wood shavings and oat hulls to produce feed and bedding for our turkeys. In total, we use 49 ingredients in our feed from 83 suppliers. Here’s a list of some of our ingredients:
What we buy:
- Sunflower hulls: bought from other companies and reused as a bedding source and later as a fertilizer
- Wood shavings: by-products from other manufacturing processes, including window manufacturers and lumberyards
- Oat hulls: bought from oat manufacturers and reused as a bedding source
- Soybean meal: bought from manufacturers after extract of oil and used in feed as a source of protein
- Bakery meal: used in feed
- Distillers dried grains: by-products of ethanol industry used in feed
- Meat and bone meal: by-product of processing plants used in feed
What we sell:
- Egg shells: sold to other manufacturers for rendering and use in fertilizer
- Turkey litter: sold to a power plant to use as a source of energy and sold as organic fertilizer
- Ash: from burning turkey litter, ash is sold to a manufacturer to reuse as a fertilizer
- Animal fat: sold as biodiesel fuel
By reusing and recycling these by-products, materials are kept out of the landfill and new products are produced. It’s a cycle that benefits everyone.
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At Jennie-O Turkey Store, we are proud of our five veterinarians that spend the majority of their time out in the field and have developed a personal relationship with the farmers. As regular visitors to company-owned and labor-equity farms—as much as 2-5 days per workweek are spent on the farm—our staff veterinarians have one-on-one interaction with the farmers and livestock, allowing them to effectively monitor the animals and offer more knowledgeable follow-up treatment to maintain the health of the animals.
This personal attention also helps educate farmers on ways to improve the health of the livestock and more efficiently monitor the animals. Another example of the important role veterinarians play at Hormel Foods can be seen at Clougherty Packing Company where two licensed veterinarians’ responsibilities include overseeing the company-owned hog farms and the procurement and the delivery of healthy, high-quality livestock from selected suppliers as well as overseeing the live production and feed mill facilities for the farms, which are located in California, Arizona and Wyoming. In addition, the staff veterinarian for the hog farm operations works directly with the production management teams in each location to oversee all preventive and diagnostic medicine activities, veterinary care and health assurance programs for the company.
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Hormel Foods buys the majority of hogs from producers that are independent family farmers that are non-company-owned. Large and small, these producers are the backbone of what we do. We demand the highest quality from these producers, which they continue to provide. Here’s a look at two of our producers.
As the president of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians and CEO of the Audubon-Manning Veterinary Clinic’s (AMVC) Management Services in Audubon, Iowa, Daryl Olsen loves animals and takes pride in producing top-quality healthy hogs. It was this commitment to quality that drew Olsen to Hormel Foods during an industry meeting almost nine years ago. Soon after, AMVC began its business agreement with Hormel Foods and began supplying Hormel Foods with hogs.
“It is their business philosophy to provide the very best product possible,” Olsen said. “So, it’s obvious they want to purchase the very best hogs. We meet regularly to discuss ways we can help them produce a better product and work together to meet that goal. The collaboration we have with them is really a practice I have never seen before in other packers.”
AMVC is a livestock production company that also provides veterinary services—an uncommon business in today’s marketplace. But Olsen, who grew up on a farm in South Dakota and worked in live production for two and half years before starting vet school, said it is a logical progression of the business that is committed to raising healthy animals. As a pork producer, he is not alone in the commitment to animal welfare.
“Pork producers are the best ambassadors for animal welfare in the United States,” Olsen said. “They set the standard and do everything they can to make sure their animals have the best animal welfare.”
Olsen has been an owner of the company for 25 years and is a graduate of Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine. With his background and training in science and as the president of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians, he is a strong advocate for the judicious use of antibiotics in livestock.
“Proper judicious use of antibiotics is going to ensure the consumer a better product and a healthier product in the end,” he said. “As a veterinarian, my decisions are science based, and it’s important for consumers to know we understand how to use every antibiotic according to strict guidelines in swine production today so it does not risk the consumer.”
Olsen also has expertise in animal welfare and has seen the steps the industry takes to stay current with the best practices that will make the animals as comfortable and healthy as possible—one practice that has received focused attention of late is gestation stalls.
“From a science perspective, we should evaluate all practices,” he said of gestation stalls. “I hope we continue to make sound decisions based on science and what is good for the animals.”
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One of eight children, Gary Thome grew up on a farm that his father managed in rural Minnesota. He began farming in 1977 with 20 sows. Now with a family of his own, Thome owns Thome Family Farms, a three-site operation with 500 sows that involves Thome, his wife, Jane, their two sons and their families.
All within three miles of each other, members of the family live on acres of farm as part of the business. His son, Matt, is in charge of the farrowing operation—where pigs give birth. His other son, Pat, is responsible for crops and maintenance. Thome pitches in where he is needed and manages records and paperwork.
“Over the years, we have gone from my wife and I being on 132 acres to our three families on about 1,400 acres,” Thome said. “As neighbors have retired, we’ve been able to buy their land because they knew the land would be in good hands. They saw our stewardship—how we took care of the land, the quality of production and our conservation practices.”
In 1995, Thome signed a long-term agreement to sell pigs to Hormel Foods. Because of this agreement, Thome had access to the capital required to partner with Mark Schaefer, forming Schaefer Thome Pork to operate a finishing facility—a site where farmers grow pigs until they are large enough to be sold to Hormel Foods according to strict health guidelines.
In total, Schaefer Thome Pork inventories approximately 15,000 pigs and works with six other farm families within a 10-mile radius of Adams, MN, to manage this operation. As a multi-family endeavor, farming in this community affects more than just the farmers—veterinarians, feed mill employees, power washers and many others are employed because of the farming community.
“Our pork production provides turnover of dollars in the community,” Thome said. “When we get paid from Hormel Foods, those dollars get multiplied.”
Committed to helping others in the community improve their pork operations, Thome teaches a class at Riverland Community College in Austin, MN. He works with about 50 farm families on ways to improve their business based on keeping records and provides a computerized analysis of the business to meet farm and family goals. “Ninety percent of our time is spent at the kitchen table, looking at the numbers, analyzing where they are at and helping them build a business plan,” Thome said.
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It is important our hogs be as comfortable as possible when they arrive at our plants. And we aren’t just saying that. In the first part of 2008, we will proudly finish our $6.2 million state-of-the-art livestock holding facility in our Austin, MN, plant. The new addition and renovation of the existing structure has taken about a year and a half to construct. The new features improve hog mobility and comfort, providing hogs important rest and recovery time and climate-controlled conditions.
Features include a level walking area so the animals do not have to navigate steep inclines or declines, controlled heating in the floors, a sprinkler system for cooling, an employee walkway between pens to promote better hog movement and reduce the chance of employee injury, and optimum overhead lighting.
“Hormel Foods has been a leader and one of the most supportive companies on providing access to their plants for animal welfare auditor training. They have opened up their doors for Professional Animal Auditor Certification Organization (PAACO) auditor training, which will help improve animal welfare throughout the entire meat industry. They have also been a leader in working with university researchers on studies that will improve animal welfare during transport and handling at the plant.”
Temple Grandin, Professor, Department of Animal Sciences, Colorado State University
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