ASPIRING TO BE AN
EXTRAORDINARY COMPANY
Dear Stakeholders,
Like many others, I grew up associating good, wholesome nourishment with the Campbell's brand—an association that has deepened throughout my life. My respect for Campbell's heritage and the quality of its products strongly influenced my decision to join Campbell Soup Company seven years ago. As CEO, I have had the privilege of overseeing the growth of Campbell's business around the world. It is my responsibility to maintain the trust that consumers have placed in our company and our brands for 139 years—a responsibility that is shared, and embraced wholeheartedly, by all of our nearly 20,000 associates.
When I arrived at Campbell in 2001, the company was underperforming. Recognizing that low morale had contributed to lackluster financial results, we adopted a new pledge to win in the marketplace by winning in the workplace, and developed new strategies to improve our performance in both. Since that time, employee engagement has become our key measure of workplace success. Total Shareowner Return has become our key measure in the marketplace. Against both measures, we have made significant progress.
Sustaining Campbell's reputation as a trusted company requires an enduring commitment to keep our promises to our consumers, customers, employees, investors, local communities and others whose lives are affected by our business. Our company's ethics and compliance program, known as Winning With Integrity, is the cornerstone of that commitment. It reflects our conviction to conduct our business ethically, honestly and honorably in every country in which we operate.
Three years ago, we adopted a Mission Statement that succinctly expresses our company's purpose and inspires us to deliver safe, high-quality products that people can trust.
Our Mission:
Together we will build the world's most extraordinary food
company by nourishing people's lives everywhere, every day.
Embedded in our Mission Statement are four overarching themes. First, "nourishing people's lives" affirms our responsibility to nourish the lives of our consumers, employees, communities and other stakeholders. Second, "building the world's most extraordinary food company" acknowledges that we must uphold the values of integrity, performance excellence and exemplary corporate citizenship. Third, the word "together" underscores the importance of teamwork, collaboration and engagement among our employees. And finally, "everywhere, every day" emphasizes the pervasive and continuous nature of our commitment. Throughout this report we demonstrate the ways in which our Mission Statement guides and inspires our approach to corporate social responsibility at Campbell.
The content of this, our first CSR report, highlights initiatives, programs and activities we have undertaken to honor our responsibilities to our stakeholders and to advance sustainable practices throughout our business operations. While we are making an important first step with this report, it is not yet a comprehensive report that uses extensive metrics against international standards. However, it does represent an honest assessment of our positions and performance in addressing some of the key issues and trends facing the food industry. Our future reports will be more comprehensive.
We are focusing our CSR efforts on four areas of primary importance to our company and stakeholders: our consumers, our planet, our employees and our communities.
OUR CONSUMERS
Consumers around the world are recognizing the importance of sound nutrition to their health and well-being, and those of their families and communities. Scientific and medical research is increasingly highlighting the significance of nutrition to prevention of disease. At Campbell we are pursuing an array of initiatives to respond to the global need to promote nutrition by providing foods that are wholesome, convenient, great-tasting and affordable, including foods that contain more whole grains, less sodium and zero trans-fats. Sodium reduction has been and will remain a priority for Campbell. We are working now to introduce new or reformulated reduced sodium soups in 2009 and beyond. We are also committed to further research and development in the area of vegetable nutrition in soups, beverages and snacks.
OUR PLANET
Throughout our supply chain we are working to minimize the environmental impact of our business operations while delivering safe products of the highest imaginable quality and value. For more than 20 years we have worked directly with the farmers who grow many of our ingredients to develop sustainable agricultural practices. Whenever possible, we obtain our ingredients locally to decrease transport time and reduce our carbon footprint. We have also reduced water and energy use in our plants, while continuing to find new ways to minimize the impact of our packaging and to recycle or reuse materials.
OUR EMPLOYEES
Our workplace initiatives are intended to build an inclusive environment in which all employees are encouraged to grow, personally and professionally. We are strengthening our commitment to diversity in every aspect of our business, with an emphasis on increasing the representation of women and people of color, especially at the management level. We believe that by valuing and empowering our people, we will drive our success in the marketplace. We have also expanded workplace programs to give our associates better access to health and wellness information and resources that can help them live healthier lives. Each year we measure employee engagement to gauge the success of our workplace initiatives. I'm very pleased that, in the past six years, our employee engagement scores have risen meaningfully each year and are now among the highest in the food industry and beyond.
OUR COMMUNITIES
We describe our community efforts as "nourishing our neighbors" to capture the essence of our activities. Working with a wide variety of organizations and individuals, we are focusing our efforts in four areas: community revitalization, wellness, hunger relief and education.
We recognize that there will always be more that we can and must do to become the world's most extraordinary food company. In the coming years we will build on the programs outlined in this report and communicate to our stakeholders with increasing detail and transparency about our aspirations, goals and progress.
I hope the information in this report helps you gain a better understanding of Campbell's views of our responsibilities and our efforts to fulfill them. I encourage you to share your feedback in order to help us continue to advance in our journey toward an extraordinary future for our company and a sustainable future for our planet...a future that nourishes people's lives everywhere, every day.
Sincerely,
Douglas R. Conant
President and CEO
