Corporate Responsibility
Animal Welfare
At Donald’s Fine Foods, we take the care of farm animals - from farming to transportation to harvesting – seriously. We firmly believe that good animal husbandry practices and humane handling are ethical responsibilities and deliver many benefits, including improving the quality of our products.
The responsibility for and a commitment to high standards for animal care is shared among our employees and service providers. All of our producers are Canadian Quality Assurance (CQA) certified, and our PAACO (Professional Animal Auditor Certification Organization) certified auditors perform detailed assessments of our programs and policies, as well as visit our producers to ensure nationally developed guidelines and best practices for the care and handling of farm animals are consistently met.
Transportation
The transport of animals from the farm is an important step in the food chain and must be done in accordance with federal regulation governing the transport of farm animals. We believe it is critical that the entire transportation process (including loading, transit, and unloading) does not cause injury or suffering to the animals. We follow Humane Transportation Regulations and require our transportation companies to adhere to the regulations and policies regarding farm animal transport. Our producers are registered commercial farmers who work with commercial veterinarians and Canadian Livestock Transport (CLT) certified transporters.
Our Commitment
Our company policy serves as a reminder to all our employees that the welfare of animals under their care comes before any economic consideration. We endorse the sound management and welfare practices for housing, care and transportation. Our unwavering commitment to animal welfare (housing, care, transportation) includes a combination of internal audits, animal welfare training, third party audits, and 24/7 on site surveillance.
We stress vigilance in our everyday work to ensure high standards of animal care: not only is it the right thing to do, it also leads to excellent product.
For more information, please visit the website below:
CQA® for Canadian Hog Producers
National Farm Animal Care Council
CFIA Humane Transport / Animal Welfare
Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Canadian Livestock Transport (CLT)
Environment
At Donald’s Fine Foods, we are committed to environmental stewardship and giving back to our communities. To do so, we have partnered with Sea Smart, a local non-profit organization whose mission is to inspire and empower the youth to love and protect our oceans.
Through this partnership, we are proudly sponsoring Sea Smart freshwater plastic pollution workshops in communities near our Mitchell Island and Langley facilities. In the sea Smart action-packed and solution-oriented freshwater plastic pollution workshop, “From the Streets”, elementary school students learn that no matter where they live, they have the power to help protect our water systems and oceans. Students’ knowledge is transformed into protecting BC’s local waters through neighbourhood clean-ups.
“I was so sad to see how animals suffer from plastic”, said Lily, a grade 7 workshop participant. “Now I’m inspired to make a difference”.
We recognize that everyone on this planet depends on clean rivers, lakes, and oceans for survival and that we are all affected by plastic pollution.
To further support our communities near and far, we have sponsored Sea Smart to develop free online educator resources that make learning about sustainability more accessible (download the resource at
https://seasmartschool.com/from-the-streets-resources
We are a proud member of the Sustainable Food Alliance of BC. The members of the Alliance represent different sectors of the food industry and each has industry specific goals and objectives. The focus of the Alliance is maintaining a strong and lasting circular food economy for British Columbia and doing so in a way that is not in disharmony with an urban environment. The food system circle, represented by the activities of Alliance members, utilizes products that would otherwise burden landfills while supporting an economically viable local food system.
We also work closely with Climate Smart to learn how to reduce our operational greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and carbon footprints as part of the transition to low-carbon, resilient economy. We are engaged to find better, less carbon-intensive ways to produce and distribute in order to achieve the scope and scale of change required to adequately address climate change.
Our energy-saving measures include the first choice use of energy-saving equipment and recycled products whenever possible. All our facilities have extensive recycling program including the recycling of office paper and cartons, aluminum and plastic and organic materials.
We strongly feel it is our responsibility as a partner in our communities to reduce the amount of materials going into landfill and make sure we do the best possible to reduce our carbon footprint.
Good Neighbour & Community Program
At Donald’s Fine Food’s, the practice of working with our neighbours to support and invest in local organizations and institutions is one avenue that we use to show our commitment to our communities Proudly giving back to the community is important to us and demonstrates our commitment to contribute to the communities in which we live and operate.
Our good neighbour and community program focuses mainly on the environment, health and lifestyle in the communities where our plants are located: the Lower Mainland of British Columbia and in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.
We are proud to play a constructive role in supporting the efforts of individuals and organizations committed to building a better society. This philosophy dates back to the very earliest days of the company: complementing and extending the contributions made through the company’s successful business activities.
We take pride in knowing that we are able to help the communities through our modest efforts to support our local hospitals and soup kitchens. Our association with B.C. Children’s Hospital and Cancer Research Center, local hospitals and soup kitchens are a few examples. We also support research by donating specimen from the animals we process.
One event that our employees, family and friends proudly and eagerly look forward to is our yearly communal environmental clean-up campaigns.
Donald’s Fine Foods and the Leung family have been long-term supporters of the following organizations in our community:
BC Children’s Hospital
BC Women’s Hospital and Health Care Foundation
Richmond Hospital Foundation
Vancouver Food Bank
BC Cancer Society
VGH & UBC Foundation