Smithfield Foods Augments Supply Chain in Favor of Sustainability

Root Man
Smithfield Foods Inc. extends use of the CHEP pooling program to all shipments to take advantage of environmental and efficiency savings. The company is now using CHEP pallets to transport product from more than 40 Smithfield Specialty Foods, John Morrell & Co., Farmland Foods, Smithfield Beef and Butterball facilities around the country to supermarkets, wholesale distributors, club stores and foodservice distributors across the United States and Canada.

Smithfield Foods, which has been using the CHEP system in parts of the company since 2001, previously had limited use of whitewood pallets to ship product to customers. The company determined that these pallets produced high supply chain costs, poor quality platforms and needlessly added trashed wood to the waste stream. Customers were also requesting a switch to a pallet they did not have to maintain.

"As a company that has grown both organically and through acquisition during the past few decades, Smithfield was using a variety of shipping platforms to deliver our products to market. After reviewing our options and consulting with trading partners, we have moved our operations entirely to CHEP because they provide us with higher quality pallets and improved supply chain efficiencies. Equally important, the use of CHEP has a positive impact on the environment and is directly aligned with Smithfield's sustainability efforts," says Jack Mandato, assistant to the President and director of strategic sourcing at Smithfield Foods.

According to Franklin Associates, a division of Eastern Research Group, by using the CHEP program as opposed to limited use, whitewood pallets, Smithfield Foods is helping to save*:

  • 20.7 Million pounds of solid waste from entering landfills and waste streams (enough waste to fill 925 dump trucks)
  • 64.3 Billion BTUs of energy (enough electricity to power nearly 1,700 homes for a year)
  • 11 Million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions from entering the atmosphere (the annual CO2 emissions equivalent of taking 960 cars off the road)

*Source: Franklin Associates, "Solid Waste Analysis And Life Cycle Inventory Of Pallet Systems," 2006 Update

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