OSI Sustainability Newsletter: Highlights From Issue 6 | October 2020

October at OSI is a time for everyone at the company to reflect on the important role he or she plays in ensuring the highest safety and quality of the food we produce. Facilities around the world have marked Food Safety Week with activities and discussions — many held virtually this year — to remind ourselves that any impact, change or culture "starts with me."

But this thinking doesn't only apply to Food Safety. I'm proud that so many of the sustainability goals we care deeply about have been driven by employee interest and initiative. Across the company, we recognize the importance of every individual's personal commitments to sustainability and we encourage their innovative thinking as we work to solve challenging issues within our industry.

This issue celebrates the innovation, dedication and contributions individuals and groups within OSI have made to ensure our operations and supply chains are constantly improving and becoming more sustainable. It also highlights some of the work we have done to support them. This includes providing subject-matter specific training for those with direct responsibility over purchasing decisions. Employees in procurement and quality assurance are the critical actors in sourcing and maintaining sourcing standards and have played a key role in managing and engaging suppliers on expectations. We have also always taken care to educate all new hires against our sustainability objectives and regularly offer opportunities for all employees to participate in subsequent training on targeted sustainability topics.

It’s important to us that OSI's sustainability commitment isn't just a top-down company order. As you'll see in this issue, employees want to know what is happening in our upstream sourcing practices and feel connected to driving sustainability impact in our business. They are driving change and putting the OSI sustainability gears in motion. And we couldn't be prouder.

Sincerely,

Nicole Johnson-Hoffman

Read OSI Sustainability's complete quarterly newsletter here, or scroll for highlights.

CELEBRATING FOOD SAFETY WEEK ACROSS THE GLOBE

• OSI facilities around the world celebrated another successful Global Food Safety Week, events dedicated to strengthening food safety culture and giving members of the OSI family a chance to reflect on the roles they play in maintaining the high standards OSI customers have come to trust.

• OSI Europe launched a new set of sanitation policies to encourage the standardization of food production facilities globally.

WORKING HARD TO REDUCE OUR CARBON FOOTPRINT

• OSI recently chose to disclose detailed information about potential impacts the company and its supply chain may have on the climate and forests. The annual disclosure was made to the CDP, a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing human impacts on climate change.

• OSI Europe, meanwhile, is implementing measures to understand and help reduce the carbon footprint intensity of dairy-beef systems in Poland and Germany.

• In Europe, OSI is also focusing on the organizational footprint of its beef processing joint venture at Pickstock Telford and at the manufacturing site in Scunthorpe with a target to make both these sites carbon neutral by 2025.

THINKING ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT FROM INDIA TO AUSTRALIA

• OSI's Vista Processed Foods in India has been innovating solutions to reduce water use in plants and on their supplying farms.

• In Australia, Turosi published five sustainability commitments that align with ambitious national targets that seek to reduce the impact packaging has on forests.

OSI CULTURE: FROM INTERNS TO BOARD CHAIR OF THE ERBS

• OSI Europe’s Operations Director and Head of Sustainability, Claire Donoghue, was named Board Chair of the the European Roundtable for Beef Sustainability (ERBS) — the largest multi-stakeholder group for beef sustainability in Europe — on July 15, 2020.

• We also celebrated the 2020 U.S.-based interns and trainees — including the first-ever Rotational Management trainee to focus on sustainability — who adhered to strict health and safety measures to complete their programs amid challenging circumstances.

SUSTAINABLE SUPPLY: FROM CURBING ANTIBIOTIC USE TO STRENGTHENING ANIMAL WELFARE

• OSI has been working hard in each of our commodity areas and markets to establish sourcing programs that are free from the most important drugs for human medicine, known as High Priority Critically Important Antimicrobials (HPCIA) and have been piloting best practice programs that result in the reduction of antibiotic use.

• And in Europe, OSI is working with technology partners to trial a robot called ChickenBoy that is capable of frequently monitoring and evaluating broiler bird health and welfare parameters to improve production and advance chicken sustainability.