Safety Is a Priority at Heinz Facilities Worldwide

With Number One and Number Two brands across six continents and in more than 50 countries, the H.J. Heinz Company employs approximately 33,000 people worldwide and operates more than 70 company-owned factories. Just as these individuals are dedicated to making only the best Heinz products for consumers worldwide, Heinz is committed to the health and safety of each of our food products and our employees.

Workplace Safety

Heinz places a premium on workplace safety. Each of our production employees receives safety training, reinforcing Heinz’s safety beliefs that:

• Nothing we do is worth getting hurt; there’s no reason for any Heinz employee
  to put his or her life in danger
• Occupational health and safety can be managed
• We believe most injury/illness is preventable
• Occupational health and safety is everyone’s responsibility
• Personal accountability for safety performance is a condition of employment

We believe occupational health and safety is an integral part of good operational performance from the factory floor to our global offices. That’s why we implement a comprehensive safety management system and require each of our production employees to follow strict safety guidelines.

In fact, our Global Operating Principles address health and safety as an integral part of all operational performance. The Heinz Global Operating Principles were developed based on three widely respected documents: The Sullivan Principles, the U.N. Global Compact and the International Labor Organization’s Human Rights Principles. The Heinz Global Operating Principles apply to all Heinz employees and facilities, and each Heinz affiliate is required to certify compliance and agree to monitoring by internal auditors. In 2008, the Global Operating Principles were updated to include the principle of sustainability.

In addition to complying with our Global Operating Principles, all Heinz facilities are expected to abide by Heinz policies and national and local safety laws, as well as implement the Heinz Safety Process. This Process is a systematic approach to creating safe work environments that aims to eliminate occupational injuries and illnesses at all Heinz facilities around the world.

Every level of management in every facility is held accountable for implementing the Heinz Safety Process in their respective areas of authority. To further reinforce our Company’s commitment to keeping our employees and manufacturing plants safe, safety objectives and goals must be incorporated into annual business plans. Facility managers must measure performance against those goals.

Heinz employs dedicated and trained safety professionals at each manufacturing site to facilitate the Safety Process and to ensure compliance with standards and regulations. Annual Safety Health Accident Reduction Plans are developed and reviewed by Safety Committees, global cross-functional teams that strive to continuously improve safety and address employee concerns.

To facilitate the sharing of best practices, Heinz conducts annual Environment, Health and Safety Conferences. These events bring together safety professionals and other managers from Heinz facilities around the world to focus on continuous safety improvement.

Our stringent efforts to keep our facilities safe are generating positive results. In North America, our lost time injury frequency rate has steadily dropped because of our consistent safety management practices. In 2008, we experienced 0.42 lost-time injuries per 200,000 hours worked. This means that less than one employee per 100 employees incurred a lost time injury. This result is dramatically less than the industry standard of 1.5 per 100 employees.

Our goal is to reach a Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) of 1.0 or below at all of our facilities. Current results indicate that we’re well on our way to achieving this milestone. In addition, we are pleased to report that no fatalities occurred at any of our Heinz facilities worldwide in Fiscal Years 2008 and 2009.

• China
• Australia
• United Kingdom
• United States

China

Illness Prevention

Heinz plants have taken a proactive approach to protect employees from the flu and other illnesses by e-mailing preventive measures to employees and placing posters in employee cafeterias.

Fire Control Training, Prevention and Response

All factory employees of Heinz China must attend fire prevention training quarterly to minimize the risk of fire and injury. These efforts supplement Heinz China’s monthly fire inspections and emergency response plans that assign roles and responsibilities in emergency situations, as well as incorporate evacuation drills. Because many employees live in factory dorms, those employees and their families receive annual fire prevention training to improve their fire control knowledge and skills and help them safely evacuate their homes in the event of a fire.

Australia

Employee Safety Groups

A strong safety culture involves employees at all levels. Heinz Australia has put the Heinz Safety Process into action by developing Safety Groups comprised of workers who identify potential safety risks or issues so they can be quickly brought to management’s attention.

The group recently identified a way to make the Echuca factory safer and minimize the risk of collisions. Employee teams determined zones for plant workers, trucks, forklifts and pedestrian traffic. Lines were drawn to designate these areas throughout the site.

Manufacturing facilities have a detailed plan of action in the event of a serious health outbreak. To help reduce illness, influenza vaccinations are offered to all employees.

United Kingdom

Heinz’s Kitt Green site in Wigan is Europe’s largest food processing facility, producing more than one billion cans of food annually.

 

More than 1,400 employees at Kitt Green are supporting the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE’s) national “Shattered Lives” campaign that highlights the long-term health consequences of slips, trips and falls. Heinz already implements procedures to reduce the risk of these types of occurrences by providing safety training to new employees on their first day of work, preventing liquid spillage where possible, containing food waste, directing water away from walkways and using anti-slip coatings on floors. These safety efforts, along with Heinz’s promotion of “Shattered Lives,” have raised awareness and minimized slips, trips and falls in the facility.

United States

Every facility distributes a monthly newsletter highlighting safety progress and news to all employees.

Our Todd’s Foodservice plant in Irvine, California, which manufactures soups and dressings, has had no recordable injury for three consecutive years as a result of following the Heinz Safety Process and maintaining a strong commitment to safety.

Our factory in Stockton, California, recently held a Safety Barbecue for employees to celebrate safety successes.