Smithfield values the importance of strong, vibrant communities and strives to make a positive impact in the areas where our employees work and live.
Our Community Goal
- Provide food to those in need and enhance education in our communities
Our Community Targets
- Provide 4 million servings a year of food for those in need
- Each Pork Group IOC to support two Learners to Leaders® programs
- Each facility to support two Future Farmers of America (FFA) Organization or equivalent education events
- Each facility to participate in at least one cleanup day
In many of the rural areas where we do business, a Smithfield independent operating company (IOC) is the primary employer in the community. Assisting our employees and those who live around our farms and our plants helps the community get to know us. Contributing to thriving local communities enables us to become a stronger, more vital company.
At Smithfield, we focus in particular on programs that nourish the body and the mind. In addition to hunger relief and learning-related initiatives, we and our IOCs also provide support for local and international environmental stewardship efforts, disaster relief, support of first responders and military families, and an emerging area of focus: health and wellness. In fiscal 2012, Smithfield companies contributed $3.95 million in cash donations to the programs and organizations we support.
Our subsidiary companies have numerous programs that support their local communities, ranging from food donations to charity road races to river cleanups. As part of our new sustainability management program, we recently began collecting additional information on employee volunteer efforts, facility charitable contributions, community participation, and food donations across all our independent operating companies. The number and types of these events have already surpassed our expectations. We are continuing to refine our tracking process so we can better quantify and report on our efforts in the future. Typically, our subsidiaries’ philanthropic efforts mirror our corporate emphasis on hunger relief, education, and environmental stewardship.
