“Call me irresponsible…”

“Smithfield: Good food. Responsibly.” This is the heading at the top of the Smithfield website, trying to convince consumers that all of its environmental awards actually reflect environmental quality.  And they now have another award to add to their list of accolades – the McDonald’s first ever Sustainability Award, a prize that they actually nominated themselves for. They presumably won it for having described how they try to conserve natural resources, treat animals humanely, and ensure the health and welfare of their employees. Now if only all this were true, then this award would be a great achievement.

This is hardly the first time that Smithfield has been given a pat on the back for supposedly being environmentally friendly. On their website, they talk about being the first to receive ISO 14001 certification for its U.S. hog production and pork and beef processing facilities – presumably the “international gold standard for environmental management.” Not to mention being ranked as a “socially responsible company,” or other awards from places like the American Meat Institute or the Virginia government.  Sounds quite impressive, right?

So what’s our problem? We want to know how an organization can be considered to be environmentally friendly when it raises hogs on factory farms, creating enough waste to rival an entire city – such as the 500,000 hogs at one site that produce more waste than all of Salt Lake City. That waste is untreated, and often, it is not contained- in one case in North Carolina, millions of gallons of waste have contaminated rivers and creeks. Is that really worthy of an award? Or in this case, several?

As you can see in our report – “The Trouble with Smithfield: A Corporate Profile”  - the company has a variety of environmental and labor practices that are just unacceptable. And their impact extends even further than workers and the environment– people living near their facilities have been known to experience extensive health problems as a result, including depressed immune function, asthma, and mood disorders. That’s hardly worthy of an award.