prepared foods businesses, which are also experiencing tremendous consumer demand and growth,” McGurk said. You can likely think of a number of reasons why one of the nation’s largest meat purveyors might be interested in non-meat protein. Everything from catering to fringe consumers like vegans and the anti-everything crowd, to developing protein that’s more affordable, if in fact that is the case.
Antibiotic Use is a Current Lynchpin Far as that goes, there’s plenty of angst among some mainstream consumers, those who want meat. They continue to want to know more about the product that ends up on
KANSAS LIVESTOCK ASSOCIATION
CONVENTION
& TRADE SHOW NOV. 29 - DEC. 1, 2017
HYATT REGENCY & CENTURY II | WICHITA
their dinner plate, everything from how the livestock was raised to how it was harvested. “We’re currently in the midst of a shift in the marketplace where the culture and conversation around conventional food, particularly online, is changing as consumers navigate which foods to adopt, moderate or abandon,” says Charlie Arnot, CEO of the Center for Food Integrity (CFI). He said that in January, announcing a new research approach—digital ethnography—to “identify influential consumer groups and the motivations that not only dictate food trends, but drive conversations that impact the decisions of others as they make choices at the grocery store or form opinions about
“Our decision to eliminate 20 percent of the antibiotics used in our beef cattle, which are also used for human health, took into consideration customer and consumer desires to help ensure the long-term medical effectiveness of antibiotics for both people and animals,” Keating said.
the products, processes, people and brands that define today’s food system.” For the past 10 years, CFI has conducted annual consumer trust research to better understand public opinion and how to engage with consumers to earn trust. The use of antibiotics in food production continues to be a primary issue driving consumer distrust in animal agricul-
SCHEDULE AT A GLANCE
Wednesday, November 29 4:00 p.m.-6:15 p.m. ~ Trade Show Open 5:00 p.m.-6:15 p.m. ~ Trade Show Welcome Reception 6:30 p.m. ~ Cattlemen’s Banquet, Keynote Speaker Craig Karges
Thursday, November 30 7:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m. ~ Trade Show Open 7:00 a.m.-8:30 a.m. ~ Coffee & Donuts 7:00 a.m.-8:30 a.m. ~ Early-Riser Breakfast
Regist e
r onlin e at
www.kl
8:30 a.m.-10:00 a.m. ~ KLA Beef Industry University
a.org
10:00 a.m.-11:30 a.m. ~ Committee Meetings: Animal Health & ID; Tax 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. ~ Lunch in the Trade Show 1:00 p.m.-2:30 p.m. ~ Committee Meetings: Natural Resources; Consumer Trends 2:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m. ~ Council Meetings: Stockgrowers; Cattle Feeders 4:30 p.m.-6:00 p.m. ~ Trade Show Reception 9:00 p.m.-11:00 p.m. ~ Cattlemen’s Barn Party with Rusty Rierson
Friday, December 1 6:30 a.m.-7:45 a.m. ~ Coffee with Colleagues 7:45 a.m.-10:00 a.m. ~ Membership Breakfast, Business Meeting and Market Outlook by Randy Blach
ture, according to CFI research. Meat and food companies like Tyson are responding. Since 2011, Tyson stopped using human antibiotics in its 35 hatcheries and reduced use in its broiler chickens by more than 80 percent. Related, insofar as their efforts to reduce the use of medically important antibiotics, Cargill (another of the nation’s largest packers) is also making changes. In August last year, Cargill ended the use of gentamicin (an antibiotic used in both human and animal healthcare) for disease prevention in turkeys harvested for its two largest brands. The company emphasized turkeys will continue to receive antibiotics for control and treatment of disease. Later that month, Cargill introduced the Honest Turkey™ product line, which comes from turkeys that were never treated with antibiotics. You and I could wax philosophic about choosing to describe one product line as honest, thereby suggesting all other product lines are dishonest, but the company left little doubt as to the direction it’s heading. “Eliminating antibiotic use for disease prevention purposes is the next logical step after ending the use of antibiotics for growth promotion purposes, which we began in 2014,” said Jan Hood, head of marketing for the Cargill turkey business. “Based on consumer research and their desire for transparency in food production, we developed the Honest Turkey™ product line, which communicates the turkeys are raised without antibiotics.” “When needed, we believe the judicious use of antibiotics in animal agriculture helps assure a safe food supply,” said John Niemann, president of Cargill’s Wichita-based turkey business. “At Cargill, we remain committed to exploring factbased technologies as alternatives to antibiotics, and to the reduced use of shared-class antibiotics when the efficacy of a given technology has been proven effective and economical.”
Era Shifting As for cattle and beef, you might recall that Cargill sold its two Texas-based yards at Bovina and Dalhart to Friona Industries in July last year.
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Fall 2017