Terms & Conditions

These terms of use govern your use of the Smithfield Foods web site (”our Website”). If you do not accept these terms of use you should cease use of our Website immediately.

Code of conduct
When accessing any part of our Website you agree:not to use our Website in such a way that disrupts, interferes with or restricts the use of our Website by other users; to ensure that any materials transmitted by you through our Website (on any forms or email facility or otherwise) are not false, offensive, defamatory, threatening, obscene, unlawful and do not breach or infringe the rights of any person anywhere in the world; and not to reverse engineer, decompile, copy or adapt any software or other code or scripts forming part of our Website nor attempt to transmit to or via our Website any information that contains a virus, worm, trojan horse, or other harmful or disruptive component. 

Your use of the contents of the Website
We own or are licensed to use all copyright and other intellectual property rights in the Website, including all intellectual property rights in text, icons, images, data, information, programming, scripting, design, layout and all other elements of the Website. You may download, view and print pages from our Website for your own personal or business use, provided that you do not remove in whole or in part any trade marks, copyright and other proprietary notices contained in or appearing on any material you download or print from our Website. All other rights are reserved, and you should ask our permission before making any other use of the Website.

Links
You may create a link to our Website from another site, but any such link should be to the homepage of our Website at www.smithfieldfoods.co.uk and must not be used in a misleading or defamatory context. We reserve the right to withdraw our permission for any such link by giving you notice. Links from our Website are provided for information and convenience only and we have no control over and cannot therefore accept responsibility or liability for the content of any linked third party website. We do not endorse any linked website.

Cookies
Our Website uses cookies to record information about your use of the Website, and the Website may not function correctly if the cookies facility in your browser is disabled. In order to prevent the continued use of cookies to record your use of the Website either leave the Website, or disable all cookie functionality within your web browser software.

Disclaimer and limitation of liability
We cannot guarantee that our Website will always be available to you, owing to the nature of the internet. You should satisfy yourself that you have appropriate protection against computer viruses whilst using the internet, and that your connection to our Website is secure. Although every reasonable effort has been made to ensure that the information on our Website was accurate at the time of publication, it is subject to variation at any time without notice and we give no warranty whatsoever that any such information will be accurate or complete at any particular time or at all. In particular, product information including pricing and specifications are liable to change from time to time, and you should confirm the price and specification of any product displayed on the Website before ordering. Our Website and any information or other material contained in it are made available strictly on the basis that you accept it on an “as is” and “as available” basis. Where you rely on any information or other material contained in our Website, you do so entirely at your own risk and accept that all warranties, conditions and undertakings, express or implied, whether by common law, statute, trade usage, course of dealings or otherwise in respect of our Website are excluded to the fullest extent permitted by law. We exclude all liability whatever, to the fullest extent permitted by law, in respect of any loss or damage resulting or arising from any non-availability or use of our Website or of any other Website linked to it, or from reliance on the contents of our Website or any material or content accessed through it.

Contacting us
We are Smithfield Foods Limited of Norfolk Tower, 48-52 Surrey Street, Norwich NR1 3PA. If you have any queries about these terms of use you should contact us by emailing info@smithfieldfoods.co.uk

Governing law
These terms of use shall be governed by and construed and interpreted in accordance with the laws of England and the parties submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England in respect of any disputes which may arising in relation to our Website.

Privacy Policy

These terms of use govern your use of the Smithfields web site (”our Website”). If you do not accept these terms of use you should cease use of our Website immediately.

Consent
By using this website, you signify your consent to us collecting and using personal data about you as specified below in accordance with this policy statement. Should we choose to change these terms for any reason, the changes will be posted here so that you are always kept informed about the collection and use of your personal information, and when we disclose it.

How we may collect personal information about you and how we use it
You may provide personal information when communicating with us. You may use our services and give your name and e-mail address to make a comment about our services or web site. If you enter a competition or promotion we will ask your name, address and e-mail address. We will collect information about your interest in the site when you tell us and by analysis of customer traffic. We may use personal information collected about you to help us develop the layout of our website to ensure that our site is as useful, easy and enjoyable as possible. We may use personal information collected about you to let you know about functions on our web site or changes to our terms and conditions of use.

Traffic data
We may provide aggregate statistics about sales, customers, traffic patterns and information to third parties, but these statistics will not include any information that identifies you.

Disclosure Policy
Your personal information will never be passed onto a third party. However, we reserve the right to access and disclose individually identifiable information to enable us to comply with applicable laws and lawful Government requests to operate its systems and to protect itself or its users.

How do we protect your information?
We have strict security procedures covering the storage of your information in order to prevent unauthorized access and to comply with the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998. This means that sometimes we may ask you for proof of identity or for other personal information before we can process your enquiry further.

What are cookies and how are they dealt with?
A cookie is a piece of information that is stored on your computer's hard drive. It is normally sent by a web server to you and enables the server to collect information back from your site visit.

How to contact us
If you have any questions regarding this policy please visit our 'contact us page' for all our contact information.

Quality Assurance

Smithfield Foods works closely with its EU- and US-based suppliers who provide fresh and processed meats to the UK to ensure that all the appropriate welfare and quality standards are achieved and maintained. Our supply base is regularly audited by internal and external experts and non-conformances are addressed as soon as they are identified.

Farm Standards and Animal Welfare
Our European ‘UK welfare standard’ pig farms meet UK farm assurance standards and additionally abide with the legal requirements of the local country of production. We are not afraid to change local practices to raise standards. Within our fresh pork offering, our Polish farms and suppliers do not routinely dock tails or clip teeth, and only do this if absolutely necessary to reduce animal suffering. In addition, all our pigs destined for the UK are finished in deep straw, giving them a more comfortable environment.

We are always seeking to identify additional opportunities where we can work with our suppliers to further exceed current EU animal welfare and farm standards, taking best practice from excelling EU countries.

Environment
All of our Smithfield controlled EU & US farms are IPPC (Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control) compliant and take an integrated approach to controlling the environmental impacts on air land and water of emissions arising from their production facilities.

Technical Services and Monitoring
Our highly qualified Technical Team, based in the UK, provides guidance and support to all our EU & US suppliers in the management of the quality standards required to supply meat/meat products to the UK market. They ensure that our internal quality standards are maintained throughout all stages of the supply chain, so if a problem is identified it can be dealt with quickly. Each of our suppliers has also got dedicated technical teams to ensure on-site compliance with our food safety and testing policies.

In addition to inspections by local vets in each country, our fully trained and experienced welfare officers, based in the UK, carry out regular site audits and inspections to ensure the farm standards programme is being adhered to and that all sites remain fully compliant. Independent industry-recognised auditing companies such as Genesis and Integra also audit our farm assured farms, which are accredited to an independent UKAS accredited farm assurance scheme. UK farmers groups and our customers have also inspected some of our Polish farms.

Health and Safety
All Smithfield Foods products that are currently supplied, and all new products developed for the UK market, comply with EU legislation and standards for food safety. All the production sites are certified by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and International Food Standard (IFS), which are recognised standards for food safety. Only companies that meet these standards are admitted as suppliers to the major UK retailers.

Close supervision of meat production, control over processing technology and final products are paramount. The detailed HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points) system ensures the optimal safety of products to the consumer. This systematic approach to food safety addresses all the physical, chemical and biological hazards as a preventative measure rather than relying on finished product inspection. HACCP is used in Smithfield suppliers to identify all the potential hazards so that key actions can be taken to reduce or eliminate the risk entirely. The system is used at all stages of food production including processing, packaging and distribution. It is internationally recognised as a logical tool for undertaking science-based food safety evaluations based on risk assessment and prevention rather than traditional produce and test methods which are less appropriate for perishable food items.

Traceability
Smithfield Foods Ltd is proud of their “farm to fork” traceability system in all our farms whereby, through a system of coding, we can trace the process from live animal to finished product. This traceability programme is verified as part of BRC and IFS inspections.

Smithfield Foods Group Ltd Modern Slavery Statement  

Smithfield Foods Group Ltd (SF UK) and its subsidiaries are committed to ethical and socially responsible conduct in the workplace and to the protection and advancement of human rights.  

This statement sets out SF UK’s actions to understand all potential modern slavery risks related to its business and to put in place steps that are aimed at ensuring there is no slavery or human trafficking in its own business and its supply chains.   This statement is made pursuant to Section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and constitutes our Group’s slavery and human trafficking statement for the financial year ending 31 December 2018.     

Organisation structure, business and its supply chains

SF UK is wholly owned by Smithfield Foods Inc. (US), which is a wholly owned subsidiary of WH Group Limited (HKEX: 0288). 

SF UK imports pork and poultry products from group owned businesses in Poland, Animex Foods zoo sp k (Animex) and Romania, Smithfield Prod SRL (Prod).  There are currently 11 production sites in Poland and 5 in Romania.   Livestock is sourced from a combination of company owned and contracted farms, as well as procuring on the open market.      

SF UK does not own any manufacturing or distribution assets in the UK and all UK supply chain activities related to the distribution and storage of products is outsourced to third parties.

Effectiveness in ensuring trafficking is not taking place - Due Diligence Processes

Smithfield Foods Ltd is an AB member of SEDEX (Supply Ethical Data Exchange), a not-for profit organisation which is dedicated to driving improvements and ethical business practices in global supply chains.  Animex and all its production sites are B members of SEDEX.   Prod is not a member of SEDEX.   A requirement of membership is the completion of a Supplier Audit Questionnaire (SAQ), enabling both our organisation and our customers (who are members of SEDEX) to view the ethical data of the supply sites.  In the last 12 months a further production site in Animex has undergone a SMETA ethical audit which means a total of 5 sites have now been independently audited.

In the last 12 months SF UK has required non-group suppliers to complete an ethical audit supplier questionnaire.  We have also updated our training materials to reflect the latest information from Stronger Together and other anti-slavery initiatives.   We have also subscribed as an affiliate organisation on TISC Report (Transparency in Supply Chains online database)

In order to ensure there is no modern slavery or human trafficking within our supply chain we will undertake the following steps in the next 12 months:

• continue to risk assess third party suppliers via the supplier questionnaire
• ensure all new Animex production sites complete SEDEX accreditation
• work with Prod towards becoming members of SEDEX.
• HR/Supply Chain to attend training workshops

Policies

Smithfield Foods Inc. has a global Code of Business Conduct and Ethics which sets out its commitment to ethical trading.   The Code of Conduct includes, among other things, certification that employees will comply with all applicable laws and regulations.   Human trafficking and slavery is a violation of such law and would constitute a breach of our Code of Conduct and could lead to disciplinary action against the employee, including dismissal.

Smithfield also has a Whistleblowing Policy and a confidential, freephone hotline for employees to voice any concerns they may have.   The Whistleblowing Policy and hotline number is provided to all staff upon commencement of employment and numbers are displayed to ensure all staff have access.

Training provided to staff

Modern Slavery training is provided to all new staff as part of their Induction training, as well the Company’s Code of Conduct  All SF UK employees are required to complete an annual certification confirming they understand and will adhere to our Code of Conduct, as noted above. 

Ian Lindsay
Managing Director

18 March 2019

Smithfield Foods Group Ltd - Tax Strategy

19^th December 2018

This document applies to, and is published on behalf of, Smithfield Foods Group Limited, Smithfield Foods Limited and Pek London Limited.

The directors consider the publication of the information below as meeting the duty to publish a tax strategy as set out in the Finance Act 2016.

This document covers all aspects of taxation, in particular UK taxation in the following areas:

• corporation tax
• indirect taxes – primarily VAT
• employment taxes – PAYE and National Insurance

Our approach

We are committed to:

• following all applicable laws and regulations relating to taxation;
• maintaining an open and honest relationship with HMRC based on collaboration and integrity;
• applying diligence and care in our management of the processes and procedures by which all tax related activities are undertaken, and ensuring that our tax governance is appropriate;
• paying the correct amount of tax having made use of available incentives and reliefs in the manner in which they were intended to be used.

Our approach to risk management and governance arrangements

Our Board is accountable for risk management including tax risk.  Responsibility for taxation sits within the finance department and is the responsibility of the Finance Director.  A culture of good governance and compliance is promoted.  Appropriate training, oversight and internal controls are implemented and periodically reviewed.

Risk appetite and attitude to tax planning

Our appetite for tax risk is low. Our business model and operating structure is simple and is not subject to significant judgement in the application of tax law.  We seek to manage our business and tax affairs in a straightforward manner and aim to pay the right amount of tax in accordance with the spirit of the law.

We believe in safeguarding our reputation and our relationships with all the stakeholders in our business.  We only utilise tax reliefs for the purposes for which they were intended.  We do not engage in aggressive tax planning, we do not seek to structure transactions in an artificial manner, and we do not condone, permit or promote tax avoidance or abusive tax practices.

We will sometimes seek external tax advice, for example in areas where we may have insufficient internal expertise due to recent taxation developments or a new or unusual situation such as a large or one-off transaction.

Approach to dealings with HMRC

We aim to maintain an open and honest relationship with HMRC based on collaboration and integrity.

We aim to provide all necessary and required information accurately and on time.

We support, comply with and engage with visits, audits or requests for information.

We take action if we discover errors or omissions by disclosing the situation and working to resolve it promptly, and put in place measures to prevent recurrence.