Energy Use

Reducing Energy Intensity

Although the potential impacts of climate change on our business are not fully defined, we have focused our efforts on mitigating the risk of climate change by improving energy efficiency throughout our value chain. In order to monitor our progress and identify best practices, we track energy use metrics at all our facilities, and generate monthly reports. We have set a new target to reduce our energy intensity (energy use per 100 pounds of product) to 10 percent below fiscal 2008 levels by fiscal 2016. Meeting the target should also reduce GHG emissions.

During fiscal 2011, we implemented a variety of energy efficiency projects, including the following:

• An Armour-Eckrich facility in St. James, Minnesota, made adjustments to its ammonia refrigeration system, reducing electrical energy demand by 800,000 kWh per year without any capital investment.
• Murphy-Brown’s western operations instituted various improvements, cutting propane use by nearly 30 percent.
• The Armour-Eckrich facility in Mason City, Iowa, began turning off lights during non-production hours. This operational change decreased electrical demand by approximately 280,000 kWh per year.
• The John Morrell facility in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, used 159 million cubic feet of biogas in its boilers, saving 127,200 million BTUs of natural gas a year.
• North Side Foods’ processing facility in Cumming, Georgia, recently eliminated all processing requiring boilers, reducing annual use of natural gas by 89,500 million cubic feet.

As a result of changes such as these, we cut millions of dollars a year from our utility bills, while reducing normalized energy use by 2 percent, This progress was made despite a continuing shift to the production of resource-intensive, fully-cooked (ready-to-eat) products for foodservice customers and consumers. This decrease in normalized energy use is assisted by a decrease in energy use for customers and consumers who can use the products with less cooking and preparation.

LEARN MORE Generating Renewable Energy

NOx and SOx Emissions

The following tables summarize nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur oxides (SOx) emissions data we collect for 12 of our facilities that report air emissions to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).¹ As with our new sustainability metrics, we no longer report first and further processing operations separately.

Because fewer sites are now required to report to the EPA, overall NOx and SOx emissions have fallen since 2006. Facilities continue working to decrease their contributions, by adding emission-control devices, upgrading equipment, and tuning boilers at our facilities. In some cases, we have eliminated the use of boilers, one of the largest sources for NOx and SOx emissions. North Side Foods in Cumming, Georgia, retired its only boiler, cutting six tons of air emissions. We now use fossil fuels with lower sulfur content as well.

Biogas Production

For nearly two decades, several of our plants have used their anaerobic wastewater treatment systems to capture biogas—which is 60 to 70 percent methane—for use as fuel in modified steam boilers. This offsets fuel use and reduces methane emissions, while deriving value from what is normally considered a waste product. Biogas production fell 53 percent in fiscal 2009 due to the divestiture of our Beef Group, which had accounted for roughly 40 percent of biogas use. During fiscal 2011, four of our facilities produced enough biofuel to power approximately 7,300 U.S. households for one year.

We continue to actively explore the possibilities of generating energy at additional Smithfield facilities, including a wind farm that has operated on Murphy-Brown property in Utah since 2009.

¹ This number is lower than previous reports. Sixteen facilities reported in 2008, and 13 reported in 2009.