As a result of successfully completing the intensive program, which runs from eighth to 12th grade, eight Denison students will be receiving four-year, full-tuition scholarships to attend Iowa State University. Among the requirements of the program, students have to complete a science fair project, maintain a grade point average of at least 3.0, and participate in 75 percent of the program’s activities.  

The students, graduates, and their families will have the chance to celebrate all their hard work at the Learners to Leaders/Science Bound Spring Honors Banquet on Wednesday, May 16, at the Boulders Conference Center in Denison. Guest speakers include Todd Gerken, Farmland’s vice president of operations, and Dave Townsend, Smithfield’s assistant vice president of environmental affairs.     

Since 2007, Farmland Foods and Smithfield Foods have sponsored the Learners to Leaders/Science Bound program, an educational partnership with Denison local schools and Iowa State University. The program’s goal is to inspire ethnically diverse students to work toward degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. 

Eckrich is partnering with Operation Homefront, a nonprofit organization that provides emergency financial assistance to the families of United States service members and wounded warriors. Eckrich is donating a portion of the proceeds from certain product purchases to Operation Homefront, up to $200,000.

“Eckrich is proud and humbled to partner with Operation Homefront to help support America’s military families,” said Joseph Sebring, president of the John Morrell Food Group. “Creating special family moments is ingrained into our company’s mission and values. That’s why we’re giving back and supporting this cause.”

In addition to the cash donation, this spring and summer Eckrich will help host a series of Operation Homefront’s Military Family Thank You Days cookouts, which feature great food, outdoor games, and music for military families. The first cookout was held on April 28 in San Antonio, followed by events in Dallas, Oklahoma City, Fort Riley, Kansas, Nashville, Atlanta, Columbus, and Bentonville, Ark.

The partnership also is supported with a broader Eckrich marketing campaign that features television, radio, online, and out-of-home advertising, as well as using Facebook, to further raise awareness of military families’ needs. 

Krakus presented 19 students with awards, and another 24 received honorable mentions for their excellence in art and writing. The award-winning artwork was also exhibited at Polish organizations in the Chicagoland area.

Additionally, Krakus provided $1,000 individual grants to three Polish schools and donated a $3,000 grant to the Polish Museum of America.

Earlier this year, Krakus launched the Legend of Krakus, a unique initiative that was designed to enrich educational opportunities and celebrate Polish heritage for Polish-American youth through a modern interpretation of the original play King Krakus & the Dragon. Students submitted their creative interpretations of this old-world legendary play through a multimedia art contest.

Entries are now being accepted for round two of the King Krakus awards. To find out more about the awards, visit http://www.thecep.com/ or see the Legend of Krakus program by visiting http://www.krakusfoods.com/community. 

 Today we are excited to release a new video, “Producing Enough Sustainable Food,” that ponders the question and shows what we, and the pork industry, are doing to help feed the world’s growing population with food that is produced both responsibly and sustainably.

 “We’re very excited about this video because it provides an engaging way to show what Smithfield Foods, along with the rest of the pork industry, is doing to meet the challenge of providing not only sustainable food, but enough of it to feed a rapidly growing population,” said our CEO Larry Pope.

 The video is available on YouTube. 

I realize that I am aging myself by saying this, but I witnessed the first Earth Day in 1970. It’s hard to describe the impact of that day, but there was a universal feeling of purpose and empowerment among those who participated, and it focused my career goals.

Many people have spent their careers attempting to enhance the health and vitality of our environment. From my experience, first through the government and regulatory approaches and now from the perspective of private business, I can tell you that things have changed quite a bit from that first Earth Day in April 1970. It is now celebrated in almost 150 countries, which alludes to the fact that our world has become increasingly connected.

We realize now, more than ever, that we cannot solve the environmental issues we face without increased collaboration and communication. We all must work together in order to enact the changes we hope to see in the next few decades. At Smithfield we work alongside both our supply chain and our customers to move in a direction of increased sustainability, and we strive to deepen those relationships as we move forward.

Those of us involved in agriculture face perhaps the greatest challenge of our time—feeding a global population expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. We need to more than double our production of food, but not increase the land or other resources we are using in the process. That is a massive task, and we won’t be able to meet it without innovation, collaboration, and creativity. Here at Smithfield, we believe the future is bright, but we understand that we have a responsibility to feed the world in a sustainable way.

Sincerely,

Dennis Treacy

EVP and Chief Sustainability Officer

Smithfield Foods, Inc.

Last month we told you that Morris, Smithfield’s senior corporate vice president of operations and engineering, was named by Meat & Poultry as its first-ever Operations Executive of the Year in its April issue. Morris was deservedly cited for his reputation for hard work, excellence, innovation and integrity.  

To read the rest of the article in Meat&Poultry’s April issue, go to www.meatpoultry.com

The meat, donated by Smithfield Foods, Smithfield Prod and Agroalim Products, was distributed at social canteens, daycare centers, hospitals and orphanages in Timisoara and surrounding areas. Some packages of protein products were also donated to individuals.

“March 8^th was a special day for our company because that was the day three years ago when we first launched our Food for the Soul program,” said Cristina Bodea, public relations manager for Smithfield Prod. “It’s also the day that we celebrate the joy of giving in Romania.”

We applaud the efforts of our international divisions to support their neighbors, friends and families in the Timisoara area. 

Healthy Ones introduced red-themed packaging and other promotional materials on tub lunchmeat and deli products, certified “Extra Lean” by the American Heart Association, at grocery stores nationwide. In addition, five cents from each purchase of a participating product was donated to WomenHeart during February, totaling to a maximum donation of $50,000!

For more information on product offerings from John Morrell, please visit http://johnmorrellfoodgroup.com.

Sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the George and Cynthia Mitchell Endowment for Sustainability Science, the report emphasizes the importance of increasing global food supplies in a sustainable way while navigating worldwide policy and logistical constraints.

As a global food company, food security is something that Smithfield Foods recognizes as a growing and complex issue and one that requires collaboration and new approaches to solve.

“Our perspective is that everyone should have access not only to affordable food, but food that they can trust is produced in a sustainable and responsible way,” said Dennis Treacy, our executive vice president and chief sustainability officer who served on the Food Security for All as a Sustainability Challenge Committee and contributed to the research report.

Click here to access the report.

Before last quarter’s meeting, council members had a unique chance to tour one of our sow farms in the Midwest. This farm offered valuable insight because it uses three types of pregnant sow housing arrangements: individual stall housing, free-access pen housing and open-pen housing.

• Individual Sow Housing: Used by most of the pork industry, this system puts pregnant sows in individual stalls for the duration of their pregnancy. This system allows for individual medical care and attention, minimizes fighting between sows, and allows personnel to monitor a sow’s pregnancy more accurately. Murphy-Brown (our hog production subsidiary) has chosen to convert to the other two types of systems on our company-owned farms because of customer concerns about the care of animals in individual sow housing.
• Free Access Housing: In this system, a large group of sows (between 30 and 40) has access to a common area for lounging and exercise as well as access to individual stalls used for feeding. Sows can come and go as they please and can close a gate behind them in the stalls if they choose. It is worth noting that 90% of sows choose to spend a majority of their time in the individual stalls rather than in the common area.
• Small Group Housing: This form of housing allows six sows to be in a common open pen once they are confirmed pregnant. These pens include six feeding stations, which helps to minimize fighting between sows for feed.

It’s important for our animal care experts to understand the benefits and challenges associated with each type of housing to ensure our company is providing the best care possible for all our animals.

Want to see snapshots of the group’s tour? Check out our photo album on Facebook: