Health & Safety Policy

Smithfield Foods1 recognizes our workers as our greatest asset, and firmly believe the health and safety of every individual working or visiting one of our locations is our responsibility.

Just as we strive to be an industry leader in producing wholesome food products, following best-in-class animal welfare practices, and protecting the environment, we also strive to lead the industry in occupational safety and health. To that end, Smithfield Foods has developed and is currently implementing the Smithfield Injury Prevention System (SIPS).

SIPS delivers our commitment to provide safe and healthy working conditions and to prevent injury and ill-health to workers and visitors by:

  • Maintaining a corporate and local level leadership team to steer the overall process;
  • Providing professional safety resources across all organizational levels;
  • Maintaining compliance with all federal, state, local laws, and Smithfield corporate safety requirements;
  • Defining roles and responsibilities for all workers affecting safety performance, and measuring adherence to those responsibilities through performance reviews;
  • Conducting initial and ongoing risk assessments that identify control measures;
  • Developing management plans, processes, and procedures that utilize the hierarchy of controls for the timely abatement and reduction of hazards;
  • Promoting active participation of all workers within the ongoing delivery of SIPS, training, awareness of potential hazards, auditing, continuous improvement processes, and evaluations;
  • Developing measurements and auditing systems to ensure standards of performance are being achieved and opportunities for improvement are identified;
  • Involving senior and local level management in the on-going development of the SIPS system;
  • Continuously improving SIPS using information gathered through the implementation of our safety systems and programs, and through performance reviews.

To maintain a safe and healthy working environment, every worker and visitor must comply with the requirements specified in SIPS.

This policy shall be reviewed and revised as necessary, at least annually, and will be communicated to every worker as well as to other interested parties.

Reviewed and accepted on this date: February 1, 2018


1 All references to “Smithfield,” “we,” “us,” and “our” are terms of convenience used to refer collectively to Smithfield Foods and all of its subsidiaries. Similarly, the terms “division” and “business unit” may be used to refer to one or more subsidiaries, which are independent operating companies.