Smithfield Foods Invests in RNG Production to Reduce GHG Emissions

Smithfield Foods, through the nationwide expansion of Smithfield Renewables, has launched innovative projects designed to help meet its goal to reduce the company’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 25 percent by 2025, which it set in concert with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).

As part of the expansion of Smithfield Renewables, Smithfield is implimenting “manure-to-energy” projects across 90 percent of Smithfield’s hog finishing spaces in North Carolina and Utah, and nearly all Smithfield’s hog finishing spaces in Missouri over the next ten years.

Converting existing anaerobic treatment lagoons to covered digesters or constructing new covered digesters to capture biogas, which will be transported to central processing facilities to be converted into RNG in North Carolina, Missouri, and Utah. Launching new programs that target GHG reductions and bolster Smithfield’s sustainability efforts at farms, plants, and throughout the company’s transportation network.

“Today’s announcement is the culmination of decades spent studying and perfecting the commercial viability of ‘manure-to-energy’ projects,” said Kenneth M. Sullivan, president and chief executive officer of Smithfield Foods. “Our investment in these projects underscores our longstanding commitment to sustainability, as well as our promise to produce good food in a responsible way.”