Last week, the Alliance held one of our regular webinars for the restaurant/retail/foodservice community. These webinars are our opportunity to make sure our food industry customers are hearing the perspective of animal agriculture on important issues such as animal welfare, responsible antibiotic use and sustainability. We know food brands are frequently receiving both well-intentioned questions from consumers and not-so-well-intentioned outreach from animal rights activist groups, so it’s important for us to make sure we’re connecting with them frequently as well and sharing the latest information.

This most recent event focused on sustainability (which I’m sure comes as no surprise, given all of the current focus on this issue) and our audience heard from Angie Krieger, National Pork Board (fellow Meatingplace blogger!); Dr. Ken Opengart, Tyson Foods; and Angela Anderson, Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy. I think many of the insights shared during this discussion are quite relevant to the meat community so I’d like to share them here.

The discussion explored consumer views on sustainability, including a dive into some recent Pork Board research on building trust.

Words matter — online conversations about “sustainability” are more focused on solutions, while “climate change” discussions center on politics and debate.
How we think about sustainability and how consumers think about it can be different. For the animal ag community, “environmental sustainability” means land, water, air pollution and conservation, while the term makes consumers think of animal care, worker treatment and the community.
Consumers view farmers as responsible and trust them: 60% say “farmers are on my side when it comes to helping me stay healthy” and 88% trust farmers either “a lot” or “some” (a 4% increase from previous surveys).

My takeaway from these insights is that we need to make sure we’re listening to our true stakeholders on sustainability and understanding how they define the concept, not just jumping to creating goals and commitments based on our own perceptions.

We also covered sustainability in broiler production, including how factors such as improved genetics, nutrition and management, no hormone use, responsible antibiotic use, and improved infrastructure had contributed to significant gains. Over the last 45 years, the U.S. broiler industry has reduced: water depletion by 53%, land occupation by 71%; fossil energy by 38%; and global warming potential by 32%. However, every choice comes with consequences that need to be considered. For example, the increase in percent of U.S. broilers raised as “no antibiotics ever” has corresponded with a decrease in broiler livability. Similarly, the push for “slow growing” broiler genetics has significant tradeoffs, such as a reduction in white meat per bird and increases in water consumption, manure production and GHG emissions — a major concern for companies with ambitious environmental goals.

These examples illustrate why companies need to approach sustainability holistically, rather than addressing one-off issues (especially in reaction to activist campaigns).

The main action item for our participants following the conversation was to reach out to the animal ag community (suppliers, industry groups, sustainability initiatives such as the USRSB and USRSPE) and make sustainability a collaborative conversation. That action needs to go both ways, so I encourage you to reach out and initiate (or continue) that conversation with your customers as well.

And if you’re interested in checking out the full webinar recording, contact me at hthompson@animalagalliance.org.

Sustainability: What do consumers really want?

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