- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
There has been a recent massive outbreak of food chains promoting meat raised without hormones, steroids or antibiotics. Subsequently there has been a recent outbreak on social media of people condemning these chains for a variety of reasons. I’m an ag girl. I was raised on a beef farm, I raise my own beef, I have my own laying hens, I’ve worked within the agriculture sector and seen many things first hand. Many of my friends and acquaintances who are so against these big chains have the same experiences as myself. It just goes to show you how differently each individual see’s everything. I don’t feel overly inclined to protect and defend the big food chains, especially after reading some of their criteria for their recent implementations, very little may actually be changed. However I do feel the need to defend them in one aspect, supply and demand. I also feel a bit of education on their policies may be required by some.
I have seen, and I’m sure if you have anyone remotely ag on any of your social media outlets you have seen, people attack these food chains for denying animals proper care and for sourcing out products outside of Canada. This last one is mainly in regards to A&W sourcing beef from Australia. Many call for boycotting because Canadian products aren’t supported. I can only shake my head at this. Providing a product for a market is a tough business, you’re always in competition with someone. Without getting into a dispute over labour costs and outsourcing, lets just stick to product quality. Not a debate over better vs worse quality, just quality. If consumers want blue shirts then retailers will give them blue shirts as that is what will make them money. If local suppliers only have green shirts then retailers are going to go somewhere else for blue shirts. Should suppliers get angry? Well according to some Canadian beef farmers, Yes sir! They don’t care that the retailers may lose money and their businesses by supplying products that consumers don’t want, as long as their products are purchased by the retailers. Now I personally don’t hold an MBa or any sort of degree in business but I do know that one of the major rules in supply and demand is that you give the customer what they want. If the customers have decided they want beef - or pork or chicken - with less antibiotics and less growth stimulants then it is our job to supply them with it. Not whine and moan and boycott because nobody now wants what we are producing. You can debate on technical jargon in marketing campaigns and toss about scientific facts as much as you want but the customer wants what they want.
Another major rule that I learnt somewhere along the line is K.I.S.S. Now I also don’t have a marketing degree however Keep It Simple Stupid was applicable to many projects in high school and it applies just as well to the marketing of products. Consumers don’t want to read giant ads about prophylactic uses of antibiotics and the differences between growth hormones and why some are banned in places and some aren’t. Nor will they follow citations to research papers about withdrawals and residues. They don’t want half hour commercials breaking it all down. In marketing simple and concise is what works. If that means cutting out the word “added” from the majority of the campaign then that is what they’ll do. If a small fraction of the consumer population believes that that means animals now survive with no hormones at all then so be it but that’s a rather flimsy thing to pick on if you ask me. Again, as a producer you should be focusing on how to supply the consumer with what they’re asking for, not nitpicking a marketing campaign about their wording.
Now for the actual food chain break downs…
A&W led the way with their hormone and steroid free beef and then their vegetarian chicken eggs. Beyond my personal feelings of chickens being active and healthy omnivores, if people buying bacon and eggers feel that healthier chickens are soy and lentil fed chickens then eat up. Doesn’t really bother me and most egg laying barns don’t generally let their chickens eat vast amounts of grasshoppers and mice anyway. I’ll enjoy my bright orange egg yolks while I watch my chickens hunt insects and not lose any sleep over that executive decision. The hormones and steroids are a bit different. Sorry, the “added” hormones. Implants are a touchy subject. Depending on which hormone, they could be banned or approved in any number of countries. For instance the EU allows no beef treated with growth hormones. All those talks about allowing Canadian beef into the EU? Moot talks until the industry takes a step back and changes a few things. Lots of industry folks also think that ear implants are the end of the hormone spectrum but there is an array of feed additives as well. Ractopamine is a beta-agonist used in beef cattle but it’s banned in 160 countries. Simply using this while finishing our beef means countries within the EU, Russia, and China don’t want anything to do with our beef. Another beta-agonist, Zilpaterol, is also banned in many of these countries but additionally, was banned from American processing plants after animal welfare issues. You can be picky about A&W putting that “added” in front of hormones in their ad as much as you want but they are far from the only ones not wanting our beef because of hormones and steroids. As farmers and ranchers we may be producing hormone and steroid free animals that are completely healthy but as soon as they enter the finishing stage most of our beef becomes unacceptable for a large portion of international markets.
Recently McDonalds and Subway have both stepped forward with policies for animals that have never been treated with antibiotics. Now that sounds very cut and dried, animals have either received an antibiotic and will not be used by that food chain, or they have not received an antibiotic and are therefore an acceptable purchase. Again, this is a KISS marketing employment. If a person is to take the time and read the policies, especially McDonald’s* which was easy to find and fairly in-depth and informative, you’ll find very little should change because of these policies. I say should because I’m giving most producers the benefit of the doubt. As a short explanation in case you don’t want to follow the link and read a variety of obscure technical words, McDonald’s will only accept animals who have not received antibiotics classified by the WHO as “critically important” to human medicine. Also any medically important drugs that would be used for growth promotion are prohibited. Any drug that is not included on the “critically important” list but is approved for use in both human and veterinary medicine can be used for both treatment and prevention, but must be in conjunction with a veterinarian. So most antibiotics are still applicable to be used on livestock purchased by McDonalds however it has to be prescribed by a veterinarian. Instead of broad antibiotic use at the producers discretion, McDonald’s is promoting better production practices that “reduce, and where possible eliminate, the need for antimicrobial therapies” and after that, as prescribed by a vet. What does this mean for producers? Maybe higher vet bills and a reorganization of which drugs they depend on as well as improved record keeping but that’s about it.
So to those agvocates posting photos of ill animals on social media and saying you’re being the better person by giving it that shot of Draxxin and letting it live at the cost of you maybe not being able to sell it at a later date - think twice. You’re not the rebel you’re making yourself out to be, nor the animal welfare supporter in the face of bad animal husbandry. If you think you feel the moral pressure to have good animal welfare I suggest you step into the spotlight these corporations are working under. They are incapable of promotions that include lacklustre animal welfare. The difference is in the fine print and the fine print is rarely included in the advertisement campaigns. You say the consumer should do the research, well so should you as the detractor.
Agriculture as an industry is just like any other industry. Things will always be a changing. Either because of supply and demand, animal welfare concerns, new developments and even the weather on any given year. The leaders of any industry are the innovators, not the ones that fight tooth and nail for the way we do things now. As a livestock producer I take a look at what my customer base wants and right now that is a more sustainable and natural beef that has been poked less times and fed less powders in it’s feed than the beef they are currently eating. Can I supply this? Yep. Does it inconvenience me to do so? Nope, not a bit. Am I going to walk the tight rope of industry vocabulary to supply this product? Absolutely not. But that’s a whole other blog post!
*http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/conte...nability/Antimicrobial_Stewardship_Vision.pdf
@Blaithin occasionally blogs for TFF and lends a Canadian agriculture perspective
I have seen, and I’m sure if you have anyone remotely ag on any of your social media outlets you have seen, people attack these food chains for denying animals proper care and for sourcing out products outside of Canada. This last one is mainly in regards to A&W sourcing beef from Australia. Many call for boycotting because Canadian products aren’t supported. I can only shake my head at this. Providing a product for a market is a tough business, you’re always in competition with someone. Without getting into a dispute over labour costs and outsourcing, lets just stick to product quality. Not a debate over better vs worse quality, just quality. If consumers want blue shirts then retailers will give them blue shirts as that is what will make them money. If local suppliers only have green shirts then retailers are going to go somewhere else for blue shirts. Should suppliers get angry? Well according to some Canadian beef farmers, Yes sir! They don’t care that the retailers may lose money and their businesses by supplying products that consumers don’t want, as long as their products are purchased by the retailers. Now I personally don’t hold an MBa or any sort of degree in business but I do know that one of the major rules in supply and demand is that you give the customer what they want. If the customers have decided they want beef - or pork or chicken - with less antibiotics and less growth stimulants then it is our job to supply them with it. Not whine and moan and boycott because nobody now wants what we are producing. You can debate on technical jargon in marketing campaigns and toss about scientific facts as much as you want but the customer wants what they want.
Another major rule that I learnt somewhere along the line is K.I.S.S. Now I also don’t have a marketing degree however Keep It Simple Stupid was applicable to many projects in high school and it applies just as well to the marketing of products. Consumers don’t want to read giant ads about prophylactic uses of antibiotics and the differences between growth hormones and why some are banned in places and some aren’t. Nor will they follow citations to research papers about withdrawals and residues. They don’t want half hour commercials breaking it all down. In marketing simple and concise is what works. If that means cutting out the word “added” from the majority of the campaign then that is what they’ll do. If a small fraction of the consumer population believes that that means animals now survive with no hormones at all then so be it but that’s a rather flimsy thing to pick on if you ask me. Again, as a producer you should be focusing on how to supply the consumer with what they’re asking for, not nitpicking a marketing campaign about their wording.
Now for the actual food chain break downs…
A&W led the way with their hormone and steroid free beef and then their vegetarian chicken eggs. Beyond my personal feelings of chickens being active and healthy omnivores, if people buying bacon and eggers feel that healthier chickens are soy and lentil fed chickens then eat up. Doesn’t really bother me and most egg laying barns don’t generally let their chickens eat vast amounts of grasshoppers and mice anyway. I’ll enjoy my bright orange egg yolks while I watch my chickens hunt insects and not lose any sleep over that executive decision. The hormones and steroids are a bit different. Sorry, the “added” hormones. Implants are a touchy subject. Depending on which hormone, they could be banned or approved in any number of countries. For instance the EU allows no beef treated with growth hormones. All those talks about allowing Canadian beef into the EU? Moot talks until the industry takes a step back and changes a few things. Lots of industry folks also think that ear implants are the end of the hormone spectrum but there is an array of feed additives as well. Ractopamine is a beta-agonist used in beef cattle but it’s banned in 160 countries. Simply using this while finishing our beef means countries within the EU, Russia, and China don’t want anything to do with our beef. Another beta-agonist, Zilpaterol, is also banned in many of these countries but additionally, was banned from American processing plants after animal welfare issues. You can be picky about A&W putting that “added” in front of hormones in their ad as much as you want but they are far from the only ones not wanting our beef because of hormones and steroids. As farmers and ranchers we may be producing hormone and steroid free animals that are completely healthy but as soon as they enter the finishing stage most of our beef becomes unacceptable for a large portion of international markets.
Recently McDonalds and Subway have both stepped forward with policies for animals that have never been treated with antibiotics. Now that sounds very cut and dried, animals have either received an antibiotic and will not be used by that food chain, or they have not received an antibiotic and are therefore an acceptable purchase. Again, this is a KISS marketing employment. If a person is to take the time and read the policies, especially McDonald’s* which was easy to find and fairly in-depth and informative, you’ll find very little should change because of these policies. I say should because I’m giving most producers the benefit of the doubt. As a short explanation in case you don’t want to follow the link and read a variety of obscure technical words, McDonald’s will only accept animals who have not received antibiotics classified by the WHO as “critically important” to human medicine. Also any medically important drugs that would be used for growth promotion are prohibited. Any drug that is not included on the “critically important” list but is approved for use in both human and veterinary medicine can be used for both treatment and prevention, but must be in conjunction with a veterinarian. So most antibiotics are still applicable to be used on livestock purchased by McDonalds however it has to be prescribed by a veterinarian. Instead of broad antibiotic use at the producers discretion, McDonald’s is promoting better production practices that “reduce, and where possible eliminate, the need for antimicrobial therapies” and after that, as prescribed by a vet. What does this mean for producers? Maybe higher vet bills and a reorganization of which drugs they depend on as well as improved record keeping but that’s about it.
So to those agvocates posting photos of ill animals on social media and saying you’re being the better person by giving it that shot of Draxxin and letting it live at the cost of you maybe not being able to sell it at a later date - think twice. You’re not the rebel you’re making yourself out to be, nor the animal welfare supporter in the face of bad animal husbandry. If you think you feel the moral pressure to have good animal welfare I suggest you step into the spotlight these corporations are working under. They are incapable of promotions that include lacklustre animal welfare. The difference is in the fine print and the fine print is rarely included in the advertisement campaigns. You say the consumer should do the research, well so should you as the detractor.
Agriculture as an industry is just like any other industry. Things will always be a changing. Either because of supply and demand, animal welfare concerns, new developments and even the weather on any given year. The leaders of any industry are the innovators, not the ones that fight tooth and nail for the way we do things now. As a livestock producer I take a look at what my customer base wants and right now that is a more sustainable and natural beef that has been poked less times and fed less powders in it’s feed than the beef they are currently eating. Can I supply this? Yep. Does it inconvenience me to do so? Nope, not a bit. Am I going to walk the tight rope of industry vocabulary to supply this product? Absolutely not. But that’s a whole other blog post!
*http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/conte...nability/Antimicrobial_Stewardship_Vision.pdf
@Blaithin occasionally blogs for TFF and lends a Canadian agriculture perspective
