Tom Hayes wore a blue jack over the top of a cross-hatched shirt and above grayish blue slacks. In a certain light they resembled the denim his audience was familiar with. In another they looked trendy. Even his glasses were hybrids. A partial horned rim extended from the its arm two thirds the way over the arch of each eye. From there a clear frame continued on, bridging the gap over his nose, and climbing up the other side, being both nostalgic and cutting edge. In his attire, Hayes seemed to be offering a little something for everybody.  In his remarks Hayes would cut the same way.

Hayes is the CEO of Tyson Foods, the nation’s largest food company.  They are also the country’s largest meat processor.  In 2017 they had 23 percent of the daily US slaughter capacity for beef.  The crowd assembled to hear him speak were those that raised the product.  In his comments Hayes would keep returning to two topics.  The first was the consumer.  The second was the idea of transparency.

Most of the crowd was eager to hear about one topic in particular:  Tyson’s recent investment in the alternative protein company, Memphis Meats, trying to figure out how to better grow animal tissue in a petri dish.  Hayes, if I noted correctly, referred to this company’s product as ‘future meat.’  The crowd, mostly all cattle ranchers and farmers, was trying to guess where in the future they fit in.

“Tyson is in the protein business,” Hayes explained.  “If we don’t invest in these alternatives, we won’t know what we need to do in order to be sustainable as a company.  We were not engaged in this segment with our consumers.  We feel consumer choice is a good thing to focus on for us to thrive as a food company.”

I was familiar with the phrase that “the consumer is driving the bus.”  I had believed it.  Listening to Hayes, I realized I had been foolish.  The consumer isn’t driving the bus,  the anxiety about what they may someday want is.

The topic of alternative proteins was fitting.  It’s generated a lot of buzz in the industry.  For some it is simply a product that may compete against their own some day.  But like Hayes, there’s a little more to it than that.  Riding along with the product are the practices behind it.

Eventually, Hayes would get to practices in his remarks.  “We don’t like the criticism of not being transparent.  We want to take a leadership stance for the industry.  We want to be able to tell the consumer, ‘Here’s what you don’t know.  Here are the facts.’”

As the words made their way over the crowd, they had some semblance that Tyson was going to help cattle producers tell their story. They also conveyed an urgency Tyson must feel, at a time when companies stock values raise and fall as quickly as the newscycle, that they need to continue to refine their own story. In wedding the two together, they also unveil the fact that Tyson and their competitors are a formidable enough force in the marketplace to refine more stories than their own.

In January 2019, Tyson will require those they buy cattle from to be Beef Quality Assurance certified. The BQA program had been voluntary, helping set guidelines for industry best practices meant to encourage trust with the consumer. It has been a good program, well received by producers, and with good participation. Tyson’s requirement of certification seems to be relatively well received, and at least one of Tyson’s major competitors will require the same.

Where will it go now?

Many in the room might not have known that an environmental activist group in 2017 started the “Clean it Up, Tyson!” campaign. It was a national effort directed at a company whom the activists felt “had left a trail of pollution across the country, and have a responsibility to their customers to clean it up.” It gained a little traction. Here in Iowa, for instance, in the fall of 2017, the Des Moines Water Works Board fresh off the loss of their water quality lawsuit hopped into the fray. 18 other central Iowa business joined them. Tyson vigorously defended itself, but in spring of 2018 Tyson announced a Sustainable Grain Commitment to support improved environmental practices on two million acres of corn by the year 2020.

Hayes is right. They don’t like the criticism. They are going to do something about it. How will it interplay with producers striving for the same thing?  I suppose it depends on how the investment producers make in telling their own story.

I am not talking dollars and cents towards practices.  That commitment has been there and continues to be.  I’m talking about telling others what they do and why.

On one hand, I like the idea of industry-led stewardship. I like the idea of industry-wide collaboration. I like the idea of getting away from cumbersome, government-driven regulation. But somewhere, in the deep folds of bureaucracy, I have some representation as a producer and there is a debate that takes place on how things stand and how they should.

As it becomes more industry driven, we will be represented by the story we tell.  It will be that story that shapes the debate.  It will be that story that will balance against the anxieties of consumers not yet realized.

“We want to share that with the producer, and tell them, ‘decide how you want to participate.’ Where we have the best results is when we have those producers talking about change and improvement with us,” Hayes said.  In a certain light I find the comment to mean they already know we are doing it.  They want us to understand the need to tell the story.