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Corporate Responsibility

Our Principles at Work

At Jennie-O Turkey Store, we believe wholeheartedly in giving back. It’s an important part of our company—and we’ve developed an approach to operating responsibly and philanthropically that permeates our approach to our people, processes, products and performance.

Read our Corporate Responsibility Report for more details and read below about some exciting projects we’ve been involved with.

Jennie-O Turkey Store Donation Helps Local Environmental Learning Center Expand

The founder of Jennie-O Turkey Store, Earl B. Olson, led efforts to raise money for a major expansion project for the Prairie Woods Environmental Learning Center—a non-profit learning center near the headquarters of Jennie-O Turkey Store in Minnesota.

Prairie Woods ELC

In 2006, Jennie-O Turkey Store helped fund the expansion in addition to funding from area residents, county board members and the entire community.

Completed in September 2007, the expansion included the addition of multi-purpose rooms and an expanded exhibit area. The west addition was named in honor of Olson, a major supporter and early contributor to Prairie Woods ELC, to help carry out its mission of promoting a commitment to the responsible use, management and preservation of our natural resources.

Nothing Wasted: Feed Mills

At Jennie-O Turkey Store’s feed mills, even a sunflower shell doesn’t go to waste.

Through partnerships with manufacturers and other companies in the Minnesota and Wisconsin area, our company reuses materials such as sunflower hulls, wood shavings and oat hulls to produce feed and bedding for our turkeys. In total, we use 49 ingredients in our feed from 83 suppliers. Here’s a list of some of our ingredients:

What we buy:

  • Sunflower hulls: bought from other companies and reused as a bedding source and later as a fertilizer
  • Wood shavings: by-products from other manufacturing processes, including window manufacturers and lumberyards
  • Oat hulls: bought from oat manufacturers and reused as a bedding source
  • Soybean meal: bought from manufacturers after extract of oil and used in feed as a source of protein
  • Distillers dried grains: by-products of ethanol industry used in feed

What we sell:

  • Turkey litter: sold to a power plant to use as a source of energy and sold as organic fertilizer
  • Ash from burning turkey litter: ash sold to a manufacturer to reuse as fertilizer
  • Animal fat: sold as biodiesel fuel

By reusing and recycling these by-products, materials are kept out of landfills and new products are produced. It’s a cycle that benefits everyone.

One-on-One Attention: Veterinarians

At Jennie-O Turkey Store, we are proud of our veterinarians that spend the majority of their time in the field developing personal relationships with our growers. As regular visitors to company-owned and independent farms—as many as two to five days each week are spent on the farm. Our staff veterinarians have one-on-one interaction with our growers and livestock, allowing them to effectively monitor the animals and offer  knowledgeable treatment to maintain the health of the animals.

This personal attention also helps educate our growers on ways to improve the health of the livestock and efficiently monitor the animals.

Read more about our commitment to Corporate Responsibility at HormelFoods.com