- Leonard focuses on the economic machinery that delivers the meat to us, or, as he puts it, "the hidden power structure that has quietly reshaped U.S. rural economies while gaining unprecedented control over the nation's meat supply." His book aims a spotlight at Tyson Foods, which helped create the modern chicken industry. And it recounts the stories of people, mostly farmers, whom Tyson has chewed up and cast aside since its incorporation in 1947.
I listened to this in the shower this morning. It's crazy to think about how chicken used to be a sign of affluence - and how one guy forsaw the change coming.
The response from Tyson: "Contrary to critics like Mr. Leonard, we provide opportunities for farmers to prosper and consumers to buy safe, affordable food.
"Tyson Foods is one of the leading supporters of American farmers, paying more than $15 billion last year alone to the thousands of independent farmers who supply us. We depend on them and want them to succeed. Some of them have been raising livestock and poultry for us for decades, and in some cases, for multiple generations. They own and operate their own farms and either sell their livestock to us or raise our chickens for us.
"Our business is structured to meet the needs of our customers and ultimately consumers. We sell our products to retail and food service companies; however, we don't set consumer prices. What we ask for our products is determined by supply and demand. No one company is big enough to control the market, especially in today's global food environment. U.S. consumers still spend a smaller percentage of their total income on food than consumers in most other countries.
"Meat production is already one of the most heavily-regulated industries in the country with laws covering such important areas as food and worker safety, livestock price reporting and product labeling as well as rules governing our business relationship with the farmers. But for us, it's not just about regulations, it's about people trying to do the right thing in every aspect of what we do, including how we work with farmers."A Statement From Tyson Foods
The book whose tires I've been pumping on here recently, The End of Food, is certainly unkind to the chicken industry, but it lays the price pressures squarely at the feet of food retailers, mainly Wal-Mart and Kroger in the US. According to that book, the retailers squeeze the suppliers to the point where each processing facility has to produce over a million chickens a week just to break even (if I remember right, he put the number at about 1.25M in 2009). The producers have no choice but to squeeze the farmers in turn. It's a vicious cycle that has to reach a breaking point some time. Buy free range chicken!