Cal-Maine’s ‘Scaling our Sustainability’ indicates progress

The largest producer and distributor of fresh shell eggs in the United States revealed growth in their second-ever sustainability update.

Meredith Johnson Headshot
(Eduardo Mota Silva | Freeimages.com)
(Eduardo Mota Silva | Freeimages.com)

Cal-Maine Foods released its sustainability report on July 20th. Additionally, the US Roundtable for Sustainable Poultry & Eggs (US-RSPE) recently released their multi-stakeholder sustainability reporting framework, in which Cal-Maine Foods participated. The US-RSPE contains three pillars (Poultry, Planet, and People) that help define and drive the ambitions of the organization and the effort to improve poultry and egg supply chain sustainability.

“We are pleased to continue this journey with our latest report, Scaling Our Sustainability, which details our organizational alignment with the SDGs and key sustainability tenets.” explained Dolph Baker (Chairmen and CEO of the company). “This alignment further strengthens our ability to provide employment, steward our natural resources, care for our animals, support our communities and maintain sound corporate governance as we continue to produce nutritious and affordable fresh shell eggs and egg products.”

Egg sales

2020 was a year that helped grow the demand for fresh shell eggs to support the at-home cooking consumers were doing. The USDA estimated American farmers produced 8.1 billion dozen shell eggs in 2020.

For Cal-Maine Foods, conventional egg sales in fiscal year 2020 was 813.7 million dozen, while specialty egg sales in fiscal year 2020 was 255.2 million dozens. Additionally, egg products represented 2.3% of revenue in fiscal year 2020.

In fiscal year 2019, self-produced egg sales were 872.7 million dozen sold (83.9%) and purchased egg sales were 166.2 million dozen (16.1%). In fiscal year 2020, self-produced egg sales increased to 930.2 million dozen (86.9%), while purchased egg sales were 139 million dozen (13.1%).

Furthermore, fleet fuel gallons per dozens sold decreased by approximately 4%, even though egg sales overall increased by 3% between fiscal years 2018 and 2020.

Hen count

Cal-Maine Foods increased their layer hen count to approximately 40,092 thousand head at fiscal year-end 2020, up 10% versus fiscal year-end 2018. (36,340 thousand head).

As a company, $462.5 million was allocated between 2008 and year-end 2020 to facilities and operations to grow their cage-free production.

Safe Quality Food (SQF) audit

Cal-Maine Foods’ SQF audit major non-conformance rate was 0.04 and minor non-conformance rate was 0.72, which was determined over 25 audited processing facilities. In 2019, the company’s major non-conformance rate for fiscal year 2019 was zero and minor non-conformance rate was 2.04, which was determined over 41 audited processing facilities.

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