Hormel Foods cracked the top 10 on Corporate Responsibility Magazine's annual list of the nation's 100 Best Corporate Citizens released Thursday, with eight other Minnesota companies also earning a spot.
The list, in its 18th year, ranks public companies based on 260 measures available in public records. Each company is given a ranking within each of the list's seven categories – environment, climate change, employee relations, human rights, governance, finance and philanthropy/community support.
Minnesota companies made up nearly 10 percent of the entire list:
- Austin-based Hormel Foods Corp. at No. 8
- St. Paul-based Ecolab, Inc. at No. 10
- Golden Valley-based General Mills at No. 19
- Plymouth-based Mosaic Co. at No. 28
- Maplewood-based 3M Co. at No. 41
- Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy, Inc. at No. 58
- Dublin, Ireland and Fridley-based Medtronic Plc at No. 64
- Richfield-based Best Buy Co. at No. 72
- Minneapolis-based Target Corp. at No. 94
Mosaic Co. made the list, but with an asterisk. The magazine flags corporations that had a potentially damaging incident in the previous year. In August 2016, the list noted, "a large sinkhole opened underneath a gypsum stack at a Mosaic Co. phosphate fertilizer plant" in Florida. The company quickly notified the Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection, the U.S. EPA and county authorities, the magazine noted, in order to begin the process of removing water from the affected pond.
