Smithfield Foods has been awarded 2022 Manufacturing Leadership Awards by the Manufacturing Leadership Council, a division of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), for projects furthering sustainability across the company’s value chain and industry.
Smithfield won 2022 recognition in two categories:
- Sustainability and the Circular Economy for ambitious efforts the company has underway in its Smithfield Renewables program to accelerate progress toward its net-zero goals to become carbon negative in all U.S. company-owned operations and reduce GHG emissions 30% across its entire U.S. value chain by 2030.
“Smithfield has always set very ambitious sustainability goals in a number of different areas,” says Kraig Westerbeek, vice president of Smithfield Renewables for Smithfield Foods. “We’re immensely proud of our efforts to steward the environment through water and energy conservation and waste and carbon reduction projects designed to make our industry more sustainable.”
- Operational Excellence for a team innovation effort at the company’s Cudahy, Wisc., facility that significantly reduced the downtime and waste associated with a key retail bacon line. The project set a new engineering standard at the facility and is supporting the company’s zero-waste-to-landfill goals.
“Our team is extremely proud that our daily pursuit of operational excellence has had this significant of an impact,” says Philip Rizzo, superintendent at Smithfield’s Cudahy facility. “We’re excited to be recognized by NAM for efforts that may seem small to us, but made a big impact for our company.”
The winners will be honored at the Manufacturing Leadership Awards Gala on June 29 in Florida. A complete list of 2022 Manufacturing Leadership Award recipients is available here.
