We have been evaluating the sodium levels in all of our products to ensure that we are offering a balance of choices for a variety of preferences, diets, and lifestyles.
Sodium is a life-essential nutrient and a critical component for food preservation and food safety. At Smithfield, salt is also a key ingredient in many of our products and helps us meet customer and consumer demands for quality, authenticity, flavor, and convenience.
Smithfield’s sodium policy, which is based on our commitment to producing wholesome food products for our customers, is consistent with the view that a healthy lifestyle is based not just on one nutrient, but on a range of factors, including dietary patterns and exercise. Our policy—which we updated in 2011—calls for the following:
- Provide a broad spectrum of products to meet different needs and tastes to ensure that consumers can make choices that suit their individual lifestyles.
- Offer sodium-reduced products for the benefit of consumers who opt for these choices or who are on restricted diets.
- Adhere strictly to all health and disclosure regulations issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
- Continuously analyze and improve our product portfolio.
All of our independent operating companies offer a variety of products that are lower in sodium than their traditional counterparts. In early 2011, for example, Smithfield Packing announced that it had reduced sodium levels in the marinated pork category by an average of 25.5 percent as part of an initiative to lower sodium across all of its product categories over the next three years.
Over the past few years, Smithfield Packing has reduced the sodium content of packaged meat products by 8.2 percent. However, many of the reductions have not been promoted on product labels. That’s because we have found that consumers are less likely to buy lower-salt products because they assume they won’t taste as good. In fact, they usually don’t notice the reduction. Consumers that participated in blind taste tests for the new line of Smithfield Packing marinated meats found no statistically significant difference in quality and taste between the original and new, lower-sodium, versions.
