Our 20 By 30 Challenge follows our previous set of sustainability goals in which we achieved significant reductions in our packaging, nonrenewable energy use, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water use and solid waste sent to landfills. We developed our new goals based on our robust key topics assessment process that identifies and prioritizes the topics most relevant to our business and our stakeholders. In addition to this process, we aimed to set goals that helped support the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Products
| Goal | 2021 Progress |
| Continue to offer high-quality, safe, affordable and convenient products that meet a wide range of consumer preferences and needs. | We launched over 400 new retail and foodservice items to continue to meet consumer preferences and needs. |
| Continue our clean-label initiative and efforts to reduce added sugars and sodium in our products and increase desirable ingredients to nourish a diverse population. | Throughout the year, we focused on efforts to reduce added sugars and sodium in our products. We created a sugar-free lemon and chocolate pudding for a major retail customer and reduced sodium in foodservice products such as our Hormel® reduced sodium oven roasted turkey breast log, Jennie-O® reduced sodium turkey breast and Natural Choice® reduced sodium pot roast. |
| Achieve 15% of sales from new products each year.* | In 2021, 15% of our sales came from innovative new items.* |
Supply Chain
| Goal | 2021 progress |
| Maintain high standards for animal care and handling throughout our supply chain. | More than 2,300 audits were conducted to ensure our standards are being met. |
| Advance our antibiotic stewardship efforts and pilot an antibiotic use measurement and reporting system. | We published a report that provides details about our antibiotic stewardship program and metrics from some of the farms in our supply chain. |
| Continue to increase our purchasing spend annually with small and diverse businesses. | Our purchasing spend with diverse businesses (small businesses, women-owned businesses, minority-owned businesses and veteran-owned businesses) was $1.3 billion (2021 calendar year). |
| goal | 2021 progress |
| Match 100% of our energy with renewable sourcing. | We initiated or completed several renewable energy wind and solar efficiency projects that we anticipate will help us achieve 100% of our domestic renewable energy sourcing by the end of 2022. |
| Demonstrate climate leadership by establishing a science-based target (SBT) for the reduction of GHG emissions by 2023. | We are on track to have an approved science-based target by 2023. |
| Advance our water stewardship efforts through initiatives in our top six priority watersheds. | We assessed several potential projects to help us achieve our goal. |
| Reduce organic waste discharge from our manufacturing facilities by 10% to decrease energy use and GHG emissions, and improve water quality. | Through our various projects, we are working diligently to reduce the amount of waste discharge from our facilities. We are currently evaluating wastewater-loading reduction and treatment-improvement opportunities and will provide additional updates in future reports. |
| Support regenerative agriculture initiatives. | We assessed several regenerative agriculture projects. In addition, our Applegate subsidiary launched the Applegate Naturals® Do Good Dog™ hot dog made with beef raised on verified regenerative U.S. grasslands. |
| Focus on packaging sustainability efforts through research, innovation, on-package communications and optimizing package weight and shipping efficiencies. | Our packaging team’s sustainability initiatives resulted in more than 727,000 pounds in savings.** In addition, we added How2Recycle logos onto more than 250 items. |
| Work toward zero food waste. | We began the initial assessment of food waste in our supply chain and published tips for consumers to help reduce food waste at home. |
People
| goal | 2021 progress | ||||||||||||
| Promote and protect human rights within our operations and our supply chain. | More than 880 hours were dedicated to human rights training. | ||||||||||||
| Provide the opportunity of a free two-year college education for all of our team members’ dependent high school graduates. | We provided support to over 150 students through our Inspired Pathways program. | ||||||||||||
| Foster a sense of belonging for everyone, where people feel respected and valued by empowering them with opportunities, equitable treatment and a voice to make Hormel Foods better for all. In addition, our goal is to increase the number of women in salaried roles by 25% and the number of underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities in salaried roles by 25% by 2025. | We increased the number of women in salaried roles by 2.8% and the number of underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities in salaried roles by 9.1% compared to 2020. | ||||||||||||
| Provide a safe workplace for all team members and reduce our injury rates each year. |
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| Invest in our team members by providing an average of at least 25 hours of training per team member annually. | We invested more than 713,000 total hours on training in 2021. This equated to approximately 38 hours of training per team member, surpassing our annual goal. |
*Based on net sales for new items launched within the previous three years and the projected sales for items scheduled to launch in the next two years, divided by total reported sales for the year.
**Savings are estimated annualized savings based on a full year of volume.
***Using the Feeding America estimations of $1 donated = 10 meals and 1.2 pounds donated = one meal.