About Hormel Foods:
Hormel Foods is a Fortune 500 company that manufactures and markets brand-name food and meat products globally. The company is headquartered in Austin, Minnesota where it was founded in 1891 by George Hormel. Hormel is a significant purchaser of pork and other agricultural inputs, and as well as a leading turkey producer through its Jennie-O Turkey Store subsidiary.
Open Innovation Challenge:
Hormel and Jennie-O seek a partnership to address the challenges of effectively cleaning and disinfecting hard to clean materials and areas in the farming environment.
Reason for Seeking External Innovation Partnership:
As a leading investor in food safety technologies in agriculture, we are interested in further advancing food safety initiatives on farm that improve outcomes. Going forward, livestock and poultry activity will need to include more on-farm interventions that do no harm to livestock, but help keep the facilities clean and safe. Any solution will need to also be environmentally sound. Current solution providers have components that work well, but none are a complete solution.
Scope of Solution Space:
- Any solution must be able to improve the efficacy of current barn sanitation processes as measured by a reduction in microbial load of the barn environment
- Ideal solutions will improve efficacy without negatively impacting current operating
- Potential solutions could include the following: new chemistries, new application methods of currently available chemistries, repurposing of equipment, development of an affordable coating or sealing material to cover difficult to clean surfaces
Innovation Solutions Not of Interest:
Solutions that are not environmentally sound and livestock safe. They must also be easy for the user to apply in a safe manner.
Proposal Response Date Deadline:
April 30, 2019
Contact:
To submit your proposal online, click the link below:
Open Innovation Submission Form
To submit your proposal in a PDF document, click here.