Environment

Each year, Pilgrim’s Mexico hosts annual workshop meetings with current and potential suppliers of strategic sourcing categories to review current business, the probability of new provisions, and the development of new projects at Pilgrim’s. Topics of high relevance for both parties are shared, such as sustainability. During these meetings, several projects are defined in which different Pilgrim’s departments and Pilgrim’s suppliers become aligned to the goals of the business, including the company’s Net Zero by 2040 pledge. Activities discussed in the 2022 workshops include the procurement of low-cost, responsibly produced soybeans for the business’ Del Día brand, the implementation of new facilities near Pilgrim’s processing plants to supply ingredients, and upcoming changes in packaging needs. In addition, the global Pilgrim’s leadership attended one of the meetings in 2022, and as a result, one of the attending Mexican suppliers is now supplying the company globally.

Thirty-eight of the UK's largest organizations involved in the production and sale of meat, including Pilgrim's UK, announced goals to halve the amount of meat that goes to waste each year in the UK, which will help the UK achieve net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under new collective action. All major grocery retailers, together with meat processors representing 80 percent of UK production, and hospitality and foodservice companies, have signed up for Meat in a Net Zero world – developed under Courtauld Commitment 2025 and facilitated by WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme). WRAP estimates that each year, around 380,000 metric tons of the meat intended for consumption goes uneaten, with the GHG emissions associated with this uneaten meat measuring more than 4 million metric tons of CO2 equivalents. Much of this meat is discarded in the home, but there are important actions to take at all points across the supply chain. A dedicated Meat Sector Working Group was convened by WRAP under Courtauld 2025 that brought together key stakeholders to identify the areas of biggest impact, and opportunities to overcome barriers and avoid just moving problems along the supply chain. Meat in a Net Zero world aims to prevent more than 150,000 metric tons of meat from ending up as waste each year, worth £1.5 billion, and make an important contribution to the UK's target to bring all GHG emissions to net zero by 2050.

The Pilgrim's Moy Park Dungannon team focused on environmental and process efficiency to reduce water use and thermal energy savings. The team installed a sub-metering system that allows for continuous water use monitoring in real time for all departments in the facility. In addition, commissioning valves were put in on large water use processes to control flow, and automatic systems were installed throughout the facility to stop water use when product is not on the line. These water savings were achieved while maintaining the highest standards of animal welfare and food safety.

Pilgrim’s Moy Park has unveiled a state-of-the-art poultry farm on its pathway to reach net-zero GHG emissions by 2040. Located in Lincolnshire, U.K., Beech Farm was built from the ground up with sustainability in mind to reduce scope 1 and scope 2 emissions by 100%, effectively taking the farm ‘off grid’ when all systems operate at capacity. Everything from the design and layout of the farm building to how it captures and recycles rainwater reflects Moy Park’s mantra of ‘reduce, reuse, renewable.’ Technologies utilized on the farm to reach net-zero emissions include ground source heat pumps to generate heating, heat exchanger systems to reduce overall heat usage, and solar technology capable of generating 1MW of electricity, which work in tandem with lithium battery storage. The facility also practices the latest biosecurity measures to help ensure safety and welfare standards for its birds. Through these innovations, Moy Park has created a 100% reduction in energy-related GHG emissions at Beech Farm, representing 900 metric tons of CO2e savings a year. With more than 700 farming partners across the U.K., Moy Park plans to use Beech Farm as a demonstration farm to share knowledge and technical assistance with its network of poultry producers. The project’s potential to be a game-changer for the industry is also particularly exciting when taken in partnership with Moy Park’s other scope 3 initiatives, such as its ‘Farm Carbon Calculator’ that will monitor and track GHG emissions in real time at individual farm level, across its entire farming base.

In 2022, Pilgrim’s Food Masters implemented a new combined heat and power unit at its Carrickmacross facility. This is expected to help remove 299 MT of CO2e from the environment, a potential 4% reduction in the site's total scope 1 and 2 emissions.

In the United Kingdom, our Pilgrim’s UK and Pilgrim's Food Masters businesses continued to use 100% renewable electricity in 2022. Looking ahead, Pilgrim's UK is set to invest over £10 million across 2022 and 2023 to support the roll-out of a series of process innovations and operational improvements. To determine the best reduction projects to invest in, the business has undertaken a net zero investment roadmap exercise. Upgrades include switching out equipment with more energy-efficient alternatives, such as replacing gas boilers with heat pumps and optimizing refrigeration systems. The business also already has local solar projects at many of its sites and is now expanding these to the remainder of its operations across the country – all of which will help to reduce carbon emissions by 11,000 metric tons annually.

In Continental Europe and the United Kingdom, our Moy Park team saw an 8% reduction in energy intensity between 2021 and 2022. Overall energy consumption was reduced due to the business’ utility saving teams at the facility level leading reduction projects, action plans outlining targeted opportunities, and behavioral changes in team members. Energy-related key performance indicators (KPIs) were also closely evaluated through regular performance reviews, and improved metering system deployment and analysis were advanced. Finally, sharing utility reduction activities and improvements between facilities was also found to be effective.

In Europe, our Pilgrim’s Moy Park, Pilgrim’s UK, and Pilgrim's Food Masters businesses continued to maintain their commitments to send zero waste to landfill across all facilities in 2022. Pilgrim's Moy Park and Pilgrim's UK also began using 100% recyclable rigid packaging this year in line with their “Remove, Reduce, Recycle and Research” strategy. All other packaging will be widely recyclable by 2025.

In Europe, Pilgrim’s Moy Park was the first poultry company to undertake a commitment to reduce packaging and food waste in its supply chain. The initiative is part of an ambitious campaign to combat the use of plastics and packaging in its business and in the industry. The company plans to lower its global use of packaging by 5% each year, while simultaneously raising the percentage of recyclable packages by 5%. Among actions planned, Moy Park will collaborate with researchers and supply chain partners to develop sustainable packaging for its entire product portfolio and will eliminate single use plastic from its office and restaurants.

Pilgrims Food Masters is a signatory of the UK Plastic Pact, which brings together businesses from across the entire plastics value chain with U.K. governments and NGOs to tackle the scourge of plastic waste. Members agree to the following joint targets: Target 1 - Eliminate problematic or unnecessary single-use plastic packaging through redesign, innovation or alternative (re-use) delivery models; Target 2 - 100% of plastic packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable; Target 3 - 70% of plastic packaging effectively recycled or composted; Target 4 - 30% average recycled content across all plastic packaging; and All targets to be achieved by 2025. The business continued to make good progress against these targets in 2022, resulting in a reduction of more than 120 MT of plastic packaging while increasing recyclability. Examples of projects delivered include: Across our Richmond fresh pork sausages, we reduced the thickness of the plastic layer and reduced the bag sizes, resulting in a reduction of 36.1 MT. We moved our Richmond frozen sausages from a mixed laminate to mono laminate and reduced bag size, resulting in a reduction of 49 MT and increasing the recyclability of our packaging. Across our chilled ready meals, we introduced a pulp tray for one of our customers, removing 205 MT of virgin plastic annually. For another customer, we moved from 2 x virgin plastic PP trays to a single A-pet clam shell designed with recycled plastic, reducing 20 MT of plastic waste. At our Carrickmacross site, we have removed another 17 MT of plastic by removing all plastic tape from site.

Moy Park’s efforts to protect nature and biodiversity have been recognized with ‘Platinum’ level accreditation in an independent Business & Biodiversity Charter, delivered by Business in the Community Northern Ireland (BITCNI) in partnership with Ulster Wildlife. The Charter recognizes organizations that are committed to enhancing and protecting biodiversity and have taken action to address their impact on all living things, from ecosystems to individual organisms. The top rank was conferred on Moy Park in recognition of its focus on protecting and enhancing the environment through a range of nature-focused initiatives including schools’ outreach and community engagement, along with strategic partnerships and investments to enhance biodiversity at its sites across Northern Ireland.

In Northern Ireland, Moy Park kickstarted a biodiversity project by planting 350 trees on the grounds of its facility in Ballymena. Moy Park team members planted the trees in April 2022 with the help of eager students from Slemish College and Straid Nurseries, who provided the trees and equipment. Moy Park has been working with the school, Mid and East Antrim Borough Council, and the Woodland Trust to enhance biodiversity around the Moy Park site, maintain a more diverse ecosystem in the local area, and offset carbon emissions. Future activities planned as part of the biodiversity project at Ballymena include establishing habitats for pollinators, growing wildflower meadows, and installing bird boxes around the area.

In 2022, Pilgrim’s Mexico implemented a Circular Economy Program in which five suppliers were invited to participate. The course explained the importance of circular economy practices while simultaneously helping each supplier develop a project to implement on their own operations, aimed at reducing energy, water, and waste.

Across multiple Pilgrim’s U.S. facilities, we partnered with local utility providers and third-party energy consultants to identify energy savings opportunities, audit routine operations, and implement best practices for reducing energy consumption. Sixteen facilities received on-site assistance and as a result realized reductions across a range of interventions – from daily low-cost behaviors to capital-funded heat recovery projects. Today, they continue to engage in other energy saving initiatives.

In our Pilgrim’s Mexico operations, we reduced energy consumption 16% from 2021 to 2022. Throughout the year, the business deployed an intense program to replace old electric motors with high-efficiency alternatives and substitute the use of natural gas in boilers for biogas to produce steam at one facility.

Joel Pounder is the environmental manager at the Pilgrim's complex in Russellville, Ala., and he has been interested in trees since growing up on his family's farm. “Timber is much more than wood and paper,” Pounders said. “Trees stabilize our riparian waterways, provide shade, and help purify air and water around our wastewater treatment fields. And, of course, the local wildlife is only as good as the forest.” Pounders pursued a career and made a living out of his childhood passion, earning an Associate’s degree and also studying environmental biology at the University of North Alabama. Pounders joined the Pilgrim's complex in Russellville in 1990 as a supervisor and now leads environmental programs at the processing plant, hatchery and two feed mills, which include environmental audits, wastewater treatment, groundwater monitoring at 15 locations, stream monitoring at six locations, land application of wastewater via center-pivot-irrigation, and the management of approximately 1,300 acres. At the Russellville complex, in February alone, more than 500 trees have been. “You need to be disciplined about every aspect of sustainability: air quality, water quality, soils, carbon footprint… Trees are a link to all of those things.” With Pounders' help, Pilgrim Russellville has partnered with local schools and organizations to promote environmental education for students, so they learn the importance of taking care of our natural resources from an early age. Pounders has achieved the impressive mark of more than 100,000 trees planted in his lifetime – 60,000 of them during his career in the company – and he's not planning to stop any time soon.

As the environmental manager at the Sanford, North Carolina Pilgrim's facility, Tina Pedley is racing to help her plant be the company's first to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions.  “I'm a very competitive person, so I would love for Sanford to have nothing left to do” to reach net zero, she says.  JBS is committing $1 billion in new capital investment to help achieve net zero emissions by 2040 and has invited team members to submit proposals. Tina’s goal is to identify opportunities that will make the Sanford plant more efficient in its use of energy and water resources. Driven by a thirst for learning and to find answers to problems – even if that involves an unfamiliar technology – Tina often sits up late into the night researching online. She also takes classes at East Carolina University on topics such as boiler efficiency to find new project ideas. “I took one class recently, but [Pilgrim's] has already looked into everything they mentioned. I was looking for some new ideas!” Tina said. Tina's first project was an infrared scanner to help identify miniscule air leaks. Now she is implementing adding flow meters and a device to maintain a constant pressure throughout the facility to better conserve water consumption. Her list also runs to upgrading recycling systems and solar installations. Tina’s drive doesn't just come from her competitive nature. “I have three kids, and I would hate to think that they’ll grow up in a world that's polluted,” she said. “I want the world to be nice for them.” A lifelong love of science is what led Tina to start her career with JBS 16 years ago in the Sanford wastewater lab. By 2016, she had risen to the position of environmental manager, overseeing the sustainability of the facility and minimizing the impact on local ecosystems. Her effort has not gone unnoticed – Sanford won the USPOULTRY Clean Water Award in 2019, an honor proudly displayed in the building’s lobby. Tina's enthusiasm for emission reduction efforts has spread to her colleagues throughout Sanford. Department managers at the plant see the available funding as a pathway to more efficient operations.These “win-win” opportunities, reducing GHG emissions while making the facility function more effectively, are the secret to Tina's success. “If you tell me there's something we need to find, I’m going to work hard at it,” Tina said. “I want them to say ‘there's no money left because Sanford's taking it all!’”

Pilgrim's upgraded the wastewater treatment facility at the Sumter production facility to remove additional total nitrogen and increase the land application function of the system. The additional wastewater treatment facilities removes more nitrogen and allow for lower nitrogen application rates to be applied to surrounding agriculture fields. This will result in more optimized fertilizer management and reduce total nitrogen loss from those fields. The total project cost was $8 million and has reduced nitrogen applied to land by 63 percent in one year.

In an effort to use more sustainable electricity through use of solar power, Pilgrim's partnered with one of the largest energy suppliers in North America to implement our first U.S. solar energy project in Texas. West Texas has some of the greatest solar and wind power potential in the country thanks to the area's abundant open land and sunshine. The Pilgrim's West Texas solar project is a 15-year agreement that is expected to supply our rural Pilgrim's locations in Nacogdoches, Waco and Lufkin with 786,938 megawatts of renewable electricity, displacing a total of 334,070 MT CO2e annually. To put this in perspective, that is the equivalent of taking more than 80,113 cars off the road for a year. When compared to common carbon offsets, the amount of displaced CO2e from this project is also equal to the amount of carbon sequestered by more than 393,024 hectares of forest in one year or more than 5,567,836 10-year old tree seedlings. Renewable electricity projects have historically been led by our Pilgrim's UK facilities, whose electricity needs are 100% met by renewable sources. As solar power continues to become a more available source of renewable electricity, we believe it can help us reach our global goal of net-zero GHG emissions and meet the energy demands of our facilities.

To celebrate Arbor Day, the Russellville, Ala., facility brought together team members, the community and USDA agents to plant trees in the area. “Quite a few of our facilities own timber land, pastures for processing wastewater, and grazing land for cattle, so you can’t just think about chicken, you have to think about all of it,” said Joel Pounders, Pilgrim's Russellville environmental manager. Pilgrim's team members planted more than 500 trees on its property, including half a dozen large oaks at the hatchery entrance to provide a screen from the road, shade for neighboring cattle and shelter for wildlife. The hundreds of seedlings planted on the borders of grazing land near the processing plant will also provide habitat, screening benefits and absorb more than a ton of carbon from the air annually. The trees are a different variety of pine from previous plantings and will introduce important diversity into the canopy. Pilgrim's Russellville also partnered with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System to teach students from three local elementary schools about the importance of trees. Students learned how trees help cool us in the summer, warm us in the winter, feed us, shelter us and provide a range of products from chocolate to life-saving medicines. The students received seedlings to take home and plant, as well as helped plant larger shade trees on the school grounds.

In honor of Earth Day, Pilgrim’s team members planted a row of trees in front of the Pilgrim's Live Operations offices in Marshville, NC. The mix of red and sugar maples were planted along US 74 and will provide a beautiful border in the summer and vibrant red colors in the fall. In addition, each tree will absorb carbon dioxide from the air, releasing oxygen and sequestering carbon in the trunk of the tree. According to American Forests, a mature tree will absorb almost 50 pounds of carbon dioxide a year and capture dust, smoke and other pollutants. Two trees will release all the oxygen an average person needs to breathe. Pilgrim's Marshville is proud of its record of sustainable poultry production and is constantly working to reduce its environmental footprint through more efficient production methods. Planting trees is another way we can help save the planet, and to top it off, they are beautiful!

As part of Pilgrim's Mexico’s commitment to the PROFEPA (Federal Office of Environmental Protection) Environmental Audit program, the company completed Clean Industry certification audits at its Central complex. The audits conducted at the complex's Querétaro, San Luis Potosí and Tepeji del Río processing plants, and Querétaro, Saltillo, Colón and San Luis Potosí prepared food plants were satisfactory, and the facilities are now continuing on in the program to get certifications.