Corporate Social Responsibility Report

[Pages:27]2019

Corporate Social Responsibility Report

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Table of Contents

3 About Ventura Foods 4 CEO Message 5 About This Report 6 CSR Strategy and Governance 7 Our Values at Work 8 Products 14 People 23 Planet

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About Ventura Foods

Foodservice and food manufacturing customers count on Ventura Foods to help them delight their customers in the U.S., Canada and more than 60 other countries around the world.

From dressings, sauces and mayonnaises crafted with high-quality ingredients that deliver flavor on the plate to shortening,

frying oils, and margarines proven to drive high-performance in the world's most demanding kitchens, Ventura Foods is continually creating the flavors and custom food solutions that our customers value. We bring the same passion for innovation and quality commitment to our retail brands, including Marie's? dressings, LouAna? oils, Dean's? dips, and Gold n' Soft? spreads.

Ventura Foods is a privately held joint venture of CHS, Inc. and Mitsui & Co. Our company is headquartered in Brea, CA with operations across the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the Philippines, and Singapore.

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A Message from Our CEO

Welcome to Ventura Foods 2019 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Report. Each year, on behalf of our team, I have the privilege of sharing my perspective on the progress we've made along our CSR journey.

We're four years into our corporate strategy to Grow, Strengthen and Diversify in our pursuit to be the most agile food company. About a year ago, we recommitted to a CSR approach that was aligned with our business needs and opportunities. We didn't want to get too far ahead of ourselves and make commitments we couldn't keep; and, likewise, we didn't want to take any pressure off our efforts to make a meaningful difference in the Products, People and Planet pillars of our CSR strategy. I'm pleased to share that I believe we made the right decisions and are seeing the right improvements. At Ventura Foods, our Corporate Social Responsibility work is closely aligned with our business strategy, which is exactly how it should be.

Fortunately, we have great leaders at every level of the company to whom our CSR commitments are a priority. They never once lost sight of the importance of this work.

Within this year's report, we've included a lot of information about our work. I'd like to call to your attention a few highlights:

Our food safety work continued to educate, engage and empower all employees to deliver with great commitment and ownership against this missioncritical priority.

Our new Marie's? Market ReserveTM dressings-- leveraging our team's insights, culinary, and research and development expertise--are being well received by retailers and consumers.

Our operations-based learning and development programs are seeing participation levels in the high 90 percentiles.

We demonstrated community leadership during our first ever company-wide giving campaign, one of many initiatives our company leads to help prevent and relieve hunger in our communities. Through our employees' generosity, which our company matched dollar for dollar, we donated the equivalent of more than 155,000 meals to food banks where we live and work.

On behalf of our team who lives our CSR commitments every day, thank you for your interest in our work.

CHRIS FURMAN

President and CEO

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About This Report

Ventura Foods' 2019 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Report covers activities from April 1, 2018 to March 31, 2019, the company's 2019 fiscal year (FY2019).

This is Ventura Foods' fourth annual CSR Report. We intend to continue publishing an annual Report to provide information on our efforts to address our CSR strategy.

This year's CSR Report was again informed by the Global Reporting Initiative's universal standards, as well as its economic, social and environmental standards. In addition, we conducted a materiality survey of employees, customers and suppliers to better understand the sustainability issues that our stakeholders believe to be material to our business. We also reviewed the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals to best understand where our efforts contribute to these important 2030 global priorities.

A Certified Internal Auditor from our Internal Auditing team reviewed and guaranteed the accuracy of the information presented in this Report.

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CSR Strategy and Governance

Ventura Foods' CSR strategy is built around the three pillars of Products, People and Planet. Our company exists to produce superior products that exceed customers' expectations. These products are responsibly produced with a commitment to quality by the outstanding people of Ventura Foods. And across our operations, we work to minimize our impact on our planet.

Our work in the Products, People and Planet pillars contribute to the following United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals:

Goal 2 Zero Hunger Goal 3 Good Health and Well-Being Goal 8 Decent Work and Economic

Growth Goal 12 Responsible Consumption

and Production Goal 13 Climate Action Goal 15 Life on Land Goal 17 Partnerships for the Goals

Although everyone at Ventura Foods contributes in some way to our CSR work, the governance around this strategy demonstrates our company's commitments at the highest levels.

The Corporate Responsibility Committee of our Board of Directors, comprised of representatives from our owners ? CHS Inc. and Mitsui & Co. ? meets quarterly and regularly reviews our progress. Within our operations, Ventura Foods' President/CEO, and his Executive Leadership Team are accountable for delivering on our CSR strategy. These leaders have identified CSR Champions within the company responsible for the specific aspects of the CSR initiatives discussed in this Report.

Many of our Products, People and Planet priorities are cross-functional, so we also regularly engage two teams of company leaders to ensure awareness, understanding and alignment:

The Ventura Leadership Council comprised of approximately 70 of our top leaders; and

Our company's top 200 leaders who attend our bi-annual National Meeting.

United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals

Ventura Foods' CSR strategy is built around the three pillars of Products, People and Planet.

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In FY2019, our employees completed more than 1,660 hours of ethics and compliance training.

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Our Values at Work

We believe that Ventura Foods' values of integrity, customer focus, teamwork and personal ownership are key to our success. By doing what we say we'll do, putting our customers' interests first, realizing that we can accomplish more as a team than as individuals, and taking personal responsibility for our company's success, we continue to grow as an organization and as individuals.

This growth is shaped by The Ventura Edge. It's what makes us special and guides our business approach and decisionmaking as we serve our customers.

Specifically, The Ventura Edge articulates our mission to help our customers delight their customers. It outlines our company's values and identifies our core capabilities that include:

Our investment in a learning environment that results in the growth of our people;

The breadth of our custom and branded portfolio;

Customer excellence highlighted by our culinary and product development expertise;

A multi-channel market approach;

An advantaged supply chain through a unique combination of size, scale and flexibility; and,

Our commitment to being a responsible corporate citizen.

The philosophy of The Ventura Edge is put into practice in our Employee Code of Conduct. The Code, about which all employees are trained and agree to uphold, states that we will comply with all local laws and regulations. It also outlines our commitments to product quality and safety, maintaining a safe and healthy work environment, avoiding conflicts of interest, and other expectations. In FY19, our employees completed more than 1,660 hours of ethics and compliance training. As Ventura Foods is committed to maintaining a working environment that values open, honest two-way dialogue, anyone with questions or comments about how we are upholding the Employee Code are encouraged to reach out to their local HR representative, their manager or another senior team member, or they can access our Ethics Hotline.

We also have a Compliance Committee of cross-functional company leaders that meets quarterly to review and address a number of topics, including alignment with our Employee Code of Conduct and Supplier Code of Conduct. The Committee includes representatives from Corporate Communications, Finance, Food Safety, Human Resources, Information Technology, Learning and Development, Legal, Commercial and Operations teams.

Products

Ventura Foods' products fuel our customers' passion for great-tasting food in the foodservice and retail environments. No one keeps ahead of trends and develops products that effectively deliver upon them in our core market segments like we do. In addition to our commitment to innovation, we are equally dedicated to producing our product line of dressings, sauces, mayonnaises, butter-blends, shortenings and oils safely and responsibly. Product is the first pillar in our CSR strategy because we know that by achieving our business goals we can also contribute substantively to our work in the People and Planet pillars.

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