Supply Chain World - Volume 7, Issue 3 - 124

food & beverage conagra brands inc.

Imaginative Approaches
Conagra Brands rewards its approximately 50 locations for their sustainable efforts. This past May, the company
announced the winners of its annual Sustainable Development Awards, which recognizes employee-led sustainability initiatives that reduce energy usage and waste, conserve water, promote recycling and nurture sustainable
business practices.
In the last 10 years, projects submitted for the awards have helped the company conserve 3.3 billion gallons of
water, decrease its carbon footprint by 185,300 metric tons and save more than $236 million. "This year, 45 projects
provided imaginative approaches to sustainability while also producing bottom-line business results," Conagra says.
The award-winning facilities will receive a $5,000 grant from the Conagra Brands Foundation. "Our teams continue to generate innovative methods for saving energy, water and waste in our operations and we are pleased to
recognize their impact through Conagra's Sustainable Development Awards," President and CEO Sean Connolly
said in a statement. "The sustainability and efficiency of our business is incredibly important to our consumers,
customers, employees and investors, and I'm proud of the work we continue to do in this space."
This year's winners included its facility in Kent, Wash., which was recognized for Climate Change and Energy
Efficiency. According to Conagra, the facility recognized an opportunity for energy savings by fixing compressed
air leaks. "The facility is on track to save 429,000 kWh this year, which equates to $30,000 in annual savings," it says.
Its location in Council Bluffs, Iowa, also was recognized for Sustainable Business Innovation. "Conagra's R&D
packaging team found that the susceptor patches used in pot pie packaging to increase the cooking heat were not
necessary," it says.
The team partnered with the facility to create new packaging without the receptor, which made it recyclable.
"This change resulted in a reduction of over 1 million pounds of packaging with an annual savings of $3 million,"
Conagra says.
The company's location in Fort Madison, Iowa, also was recognized for Waste Reduction and Recycling. Last
year, Conagra Brands says, the location implemented a waxed cardboard recycling program which helped its
overall plant recycling efforts by 59 percent. "With 162 tons of waxed cardboard being diverted from a landfill, this
change is projected to produce nearly $30,000 in annual savings," it states.

transfer. We spent quite a bit of time
integrating, just getting a good foundation and those teams continue
to meet very regularly, whether it
is here in Chicago, in Omaha or in
New Jersey."

Delivering Value
At the company's Investor Day
in March, Biegger addressed

Conagra's Supplier Excellence
Program and its commitment to
bolstering the company's supply
chain. Conagra's goals are for the
supply chain to deliver an additional $1.1 billion in value by FY
2022, continue to strengthen the
supply chain to ensure successful delivery of its innovation and
growth agenda, and ensure its
Conagra's emphasis on working
without silos has supported its
focus on innovation and allows it to
get new products to market faster.

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Supply Chain World VOLUME 7, ISSUE 3

success is driven by its culture,
highly engaged people and proven,
systemic approaches. "That $1.1
billion consists of $300 million in
working capital, $120 million in
cost-of-goods sold synergy and the
balance - about $700-odd million
- is productivity," O'Rourke explains. "The productivity includes
all the ingredients, packaging
and materials, as well as manufacturing operations, logistics,
warehousing and potentially some
network optimization.
"What my team is focused on,
obviously, is the material side of
it - the ingredients, packaging
and commodities," he continues.
"When I showed up about twoand-a-half years ago, the supplier
excellence program was really a
robust scorecard program. We had
about 125 suppliers and it gave us
really good engagement. Quarterly, we looked at their metrics and
how they were performing, and we
would get multifunctional feedback. It wasn't just from a procurement point of view, it was operations, quality and R&D. It was a
great program with great metrics."
The challenge, he notes, was to
know how Conagra was delivering
value and more completely understand the value in its plans going
forward, so it challenged itself to
look into other dimensions with its
suppliers. This involved looking at
how its suppliers were performing
over the two previous years, and
almost half actually slipped in their
scores, so Conagra moved to a
smaller group of 60 suppliers. The
goal, O'Rourke says, was to have a
manageable set of suppliers who
seemed motivated and engaged to
drive improved performance.

Supply Chain World - Volume 7, Issue 3

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Supply Chain World - Volume 7, Issue 3