How does farm to plate apply to poultry?
DA: “In terms of fruits and vegetables, there definitely is a timing factor to reduce spoilage. Getting food products from the field to the market as soon as possible—that is the fresh factor. In the live bird world, that fresh factor still very definitely plays a role. For birds, the less time sitting on a trailer and being hauled to a plant, the better. Certainly once birds go into the processing plant and are slaughtered, then there is a finite amount of shelf-life that product has. There is no inventory maintained at the plant to speak of at all. We do a lot of scheduling based on customer needs and timing and volume, and schedule so that we have the right birds at the right age and weight to meet those customer specifications. We can’t just process birds and build inventory. Inventory is not good in our world.” TS: How does farm to plate fit into Butterball’s vertical integration strategy? DA: “Our desire is to control every facet of production. Any time you outsource for a supply
