Shareholder Proposal No. 1 on Tyson Foods, Inc. 2016 Proxy Statement: Tyson Foods, Inc. Symbol: TSN Filed by: Green Century Capital Management, Inc. |
| This is not a solicitation of authority to vote your proxy. Please DO NOT send us your proxy card; Green Century Capital Management, Inc. is not able to vote your proxies, nor does this communication contemplate such an event. Green Century Capital Management, Inc. urges shareholders to vote for Shareholder Proposal number 1 following the instruction provided on the management’s proxy mailing. |
| · | The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation: “In the case of animal welfare, failure to keep pace with changing consumer expectations and market opportunities could put companies and their investors at a competitive disadvantage.”1 |
| · | “Supermarket Guru” Phil Lempert, who reports on consumer trends in the food industry: “There’s organic, there’s fair trade, but humane is the next big thing. We ask shoppers what they’re looking for, and that is what they’re telling us.”2 |
| · | Nation’s Restaurant News (editorial): “Active concern about how we treat the world around us has moved from the left of center to the mainstream, and savvy businesses are playing a part…I’m inclined to think the growing number of animal-welfare-related commitments made by companies large and small reflect well-thought-out business strategies.”3 |
| · | CNN: “This little piggie is bred for market. This little piggie can't turn her body around. That's about to change.”4 |
| · | Des Moines Register: “Crates may no longer have a future in pork.”5 |
| · | Chicago Tribune: “In recent years, one major food corporation after another, from McDonald's to Safeway, has announced plans to stop buying pork from suppliers that confine pregnant sows in gestation stalls— individual enclosures so tiny the pig can't turn around. ”6 |
| · | Meatingplace magazine: “Game over. For any pork producer still on the fence [as to whether or not to eliminate gestation crates], the…move is inevitable.”7 |
| · | Western Producer: “Gestation stalls done? Seems it like. It seems to me like you might as well stick a fork in its butt and turn it over: the gestation stall debate is done.”8 And “You’d have to have rocks in your head to build a new sow barn with gestating sow stalls.”9 |
| · | Meat & Poultry magazine: “This is no longer a debate about the viability of gestation crates in hog production but rather a discussion about how producers will respond to meet expectations.”10 |
| · | Feedstuffs magazine: “Gestation stalls [are] no longer defendable.” And, “Resistance [to eliminating gestation crates] will increasingly threaten pork demand and trust in producers.”11 |
| · | Smithfield Foods (the world’s largest pork company): “Smithfield Foods…is beginning the process of phasing out individual gestation stalls at all of its company-owned sow farms and replacing them with pens—or group housing—[by 2017]. Smithfield also will work with its contract growers regarding system conversion.”12 |
| · | McDonald’s: “McDonald's believes gestation stalls are not a sustainable production system for the future. There are alternatives that we think are better for the welfare of sows. McDonald’s wants to see the end of sow confinement in gestation stalls in our supply chain.”13 And, “McDonald's ten-year plan…is to source all pork for its U.S. business from producers that do not house pregnant sows in gestation stalls by the end of 2022.”14 |
| · | Burger King: “[Burger King] has pledged to…only purchase pork from suppliers that can demonstrate documented plans to end their use of gestation crates for breeding pigs.”15 |
| · | Costco: “We want all of the hogs throughout our pork supply chain to be housed in groups…and expect that this transition should be accomplished no later than 2022.”16 |
| · | Kraft/Oscar Mayer: “The Oscar Mayer brand will work with its pork suppliers to transition from traditional gestation stall housing to pregnant sow housing alternatives by the end of 2022. The plan is to source all pork from suppliers who can provide pregnant sow housing that safely allows for greater movement for the animal, while ensuring their comfort.”17 |
| · | Wendy’s: “Wendy’s is working with its U.S. and Canadian pork suppliers to eliminate the use of sow gestation stalls over time. [Wendy’s] believes that confining sows in gestation stalls is not sustainable over the long term, and moving away from this practice is the right thing to do.”18 |
| · | Safeway: “It is Safeway’s goal to have a gestation stall-free supply chain.”19 |
| · | Target Corp: “We’re committed to the humane treatment of animals, and believe they should be raised in clean, safe environments free from cruelty, abuse or neglect. We recently announced that we’re partnering closely with our pork product vendors to eliminate the use of sow gestation crates by 2022.”20 |
| · | Hormel Foods: “All Hormel Foods-owned farms will be 100 percent group sow housing before 2018.”21 |
| · | Meat & Poultry magazine: “Studies show that crates have more negative attributes than positive ones.”22 |
| · | Smithfield Foods: “The company believes this decision [to eliminate gestation crates]…was made as a result of the desire to be more animal friendly…”23 |
| · | Dr. Temple Grandin, a current animal welfare advisor to Tyson Foods: “Confining an animal for most of its life in a box in which it is not able to turn around does not provide a decent life.”24 And, “We’ve got to treat animals right, and gestation stalls have got to go.”25 |
| · | The Prairie Swine Center, a scientific swine research operation: “The overall conclusion is that better welfare can be achieved when sows are not confined throughout gestation.”26 |
| · | Toronto Star (editorial): “They are highly intelligent animals that are, in essence, tortured during the duration of their breeding lives… Pork may be delicious. But consuming it need not be cruel.27 |
| · | New York Times (editorial): “There is no justification…for the abusive practice of confining animals in spaces barely larger than the volume of their bodies. Animals with more space are healthier, and they are no less productive. Industrial confinement is cruel and senseless and will turn out to be, we hope, a relatively short-lived anomaly in modern farming.”28 |
| · | Chicago Sun-Times (editorial): “Pigs confined so tightly develop health problems that require antibiotics, raising human health concerns. More than that, the cages are simply cruel.”29 |
| · | Iowa State University, from a two-and-a-half-year-long economic analysis: “Group housing…for gestation resulted in a weaned pig cost that was 11% less than the cost of a weaned pig from the individual stall confinement system.”30 |
| · | Smithfield Foods: “The company does not expect the switch [from gestation crates] to penning systems at sow farms will have a material adverse effect on its operations.”31 |
| This is not a solicitation of authority to vote your proxy. Please DO NOT send us your proxy card; Green Century Capital Management, Inc. is not able to vote your proxies, nor does this communication contemplate such an event. Green Century Capital Management, Inc. urges shareholders to vote for Shareholder Proposal number 1 following the instruction provided on the management’s proxy mailing. |
