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Pecking order 2035: The changing landscape of poultry consumption
18 Plays1 year ago
CoBank's lead protein analyst Brian Earnest talks about the state of the poultry and feed market and looks ahead to 2035 to examine how Gen Z will affect chicken demand.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:05
Speaker
Hi everyone, welcome to Feed Strategy Podcast.
00:00:08
Speaker
I'm your host, Jackie Remke, Editor-in-Chief of Watts Feed Brands.
00:00:13
Speaker
This edition of Feed Strategy Podcast is brought to you by FeedStrategy.com.
00:00:18
Speaker
FeedStrategy.com is your source for the latest news and leading-edge analysis of the global animal feed industry.
00:00:27
Speaker
Today we're joined by Brian Ernst, the Lead Economist for Animal Protein and Cobakes Knowledge Exchange Research Division.
00:00:35
Speaker
He's here to provide an outlook on poultry trends into the year 2035.
Impact of COVID-19 on Animal Protein Consumption
00:00:41
Speaker
Hi, Brian.
00:00:43
Speaker
How are you?
00:00:45
Speaker
Hi, Jackie.
00:00:45
Speaker
Doing well.
00:00:46
Speaker
Thank you for the invitation.
00:00:48
Speaker
Yeah, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today.
00:00:52
Speaker
So just recently saw you at the Chicken Marketing Summit in Birmingham, Alabama.
00:01:00
Speaker
The event is produced by...
00:01:04
Speaker
the National Chicken Council in partnership with Watt Global Media.
00:01:08
Speaker
So that was a great event and a lot of different portions of the poultry industry were brought together to discuss these trends on the horizon.
00:01:20
Speaker
So let's start short term here.
00:01:23
Speaker
What are the current trends in animal protein consumption that have your attention?
Consumer Spending: Home vs. Dining Out
00:01:31
Speaker
Well, I think, you know, some of the things we've been watching over the last three, four years is how, you know, COVID-19 pandemic has changed consumer behavior.
00:01:42
Speaker
In the immediate term, we saw folks kind of not able to dine in at restaurants, you know, in 2020, 2021.
00:01:52
Speaker
We saw those dining restrictions easing through 21 and 22.
00:01:56
Speaker
And now inflation has kind of rapidly affected consumers' ability to consume items, both food and other items at a rate of
00:02:12
Speaker
they did pre-pandemic.
00:02:14
Speaker
So what we're looking at now is, and you know, we've kind of been asking the question of will we see consumer pullback on the strong demand we've had for animal protein items in general?
00:02:27
Speaker
Will they do some shifting in between, you know, some of the quote-unquote luxury type
00:02:33
Speaker
goods and more towards value type items.
00:02:36
Speaker
And what does that mean?
00:02:38
Speaker
And this year, I've been kind of trying to track the consumer trends to see if there's a big
Gen Z Preferences and Economic Constraints
00:02:44
Speaker
shift in behavior.
00:02:44
Speaker
You know, it appears, you know, at the onset, kind of looking at the data for food at home versus food away from home spending.
00:02:55
Speaker
If you if you account for inflation adjusted dollars,
00:02:59
Speaker
We've actually seen a decrease in the amount of spending at food at home.
00:03:05
Speaker
So grocery store spending over the last 24 months or so versus what it was prior to that.
00:03:13
Speaker
And then you've seen more spending, continually more spending at food away from home.
00:03:19
Speaker
That trend has kind of shifted over the last four or five months.
00:03:23
Speaker
We've got some recent data that suggests that inflation adjusted dollars spent at food, you know, food at home.
00:03:32
Speaker
So grocery store spending has outpaced in terms of growth, the amount of spending done at food away from home.
00:03:39
Speaker
So seeing that trend as we would expect, right, the
00:03:44
Speaker
And consumers, if they have fewer dollars to spend, they're more closely looking at their pocketbooks and how they're going to spend that.
00:03:51
Speaker
So those, you know, at least one trend that we've just been trying to figure out.
00:03:54
Speaker
And it does seem like it fits the expectations there of what analysts are looking for this year.
00:04:03
Speaker
So, as I mentioned, at CMS, there was a lot of discussion about what the chicken industry may look like in 2035.
00:04:13
Speaker
Now, as a fellow elder millennial, I was pleased to see the conference discussions moving from examining or really scrutinizing us to examining Gen Z. For those who don't know, Gen Z is defined as those born between 1997 and 2012.
00:04:32
Speaker
As a protein economist, what trends are you seeing with this demographic?
00:04:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's an interesting one.
00:04:40
Speaker
I agree with your sentiment there that there's been a lot of pressure on millennials to fit the mold of what marketing folks are expecting and to see the focus change to the younger generation is something of we always have this expectation that it's going to be the same.
00:05:01
Speaker
Consumers will kind of follow this similar trends.
00:05:04
Speaker
It's interesting to me to see some of the panel data that folks at the conference were pulling up.
00:05:11
Speaker
And I think if I remember right, one of the key elements there was thinking about how the Gen Z consumer does care very deeply about some consumer attributes within consumer foods in general.
00:05:34
Speaker
But right now, this spending doesn't suggest that they, you know, while they care about some of these consumer attributes like animal welfare and sustainability and that sort of thing, the almighty dollar is still kind of shifting their behavior at the moment.
00:05:50
Speaker
But the expectation is that
00:05:53
Speaker
over time, this Gen Z does have a strong desire to, you know, to be more thoughtful of their spending in terms of, you know, environmental impact and, you know, animal welfare practices and that sort
Aging Population and Poultry Preferences
00:06:07
Speaker
of thing.
00:06:07
Speaker
So it does seem like, you know, that should continue to be forefront for marketing and producers.
00:06:12
Speaker
But at the moment, pretty sure you need to continue to provide a value type offering while they're looking very closely at their pocketbooks.
00:06:23
Speaker
Yeah, I thought that the point, they're not going to stay this age forever and looking more to the future and how those values will transcend into their adulthood when they have more spending power, for sure.
00:06:38
Speaker
Exactly.
00:06:39
Speaker
Now, on the flip side, how is the aging population in the U.S. specifically likely to impact poultry consumption patterns again in the same decade?
00:06:53
Speaker
Yeah, so we're kind of thinking about chicken as a value type offering.
00:06:58
Speaker
Also portion control is one thing that I think is, you know, the chicken and poultry industry have been able to address better, you know, in my mind than what red meat has.
00:07:13
Speaker
You think about, you know, size chicken breast.
00:07:19
Speaker
versus a pork loin or some of these larger beef roast items.
00:07:24
Speaker
And it fits very well for maybe an aging consumer that is a two mouth household.
00:07:31
Speaker
So thinking about retirees and this boomer population,
00:07:36
Speaker
And what their typical spending on food will be, they likely will be eating at restaurants more frequently than they were 10, 20 years ago when they were feeding a household.
00:07:50
Speaker
Now you've got two retirees in a household.
Alternative Proteins and Demographic Interest
00:07:54
Speaker
That portion of the population will grow and in terms of the population mix, you know, we used to have, you know, you think 20, 30 years ago, we had a pretty big support level of consumers in that 20 to 40 age group and now it's really more uniform and that expectation by 2035 is it will be even more uniform in terms of the population mix that
00:08:21
Speaker
probably have just as many of those 60 to 70 year olds as we do the 20 to 40 year old population.
00:08:30
Speaker
In that mix, likely you'll have more, you know, stronger income available as well.
00:08:36
Speaker
So it all kind of comes down to that expectation of where that consumer will be, what they look like,
00:08:44
Speaker
and what they'll be purchasing.
00:08:46
Speaker
And I think back to, you know, when I started in the poultry industry, you know, 10, 15 years ago, talking to my grandma and grandpa, and I remember my grandma, you know, it's just the two of them cooking these meals.
00:08:58
Speaker
And one of the items she always talked about was
00:09:02
Speaker
this like chicken Kiev item that she could just pop in the oven.
00:09:07
Speaker
It's the perfect portion for, you know, for making a meal.
00:09:11
Speaker
And I think about that today and the product offerings that poultry has to offer.
00:09:16
Speaker
Has there been, and you know, this is probably a random question, but in that older demographic, has there been interest in alternative proteins?
00:09:29
Speaker
And if so,
00:09:31
Speaker
Is that a threat or no?
00:09:35
Speaker
I think that is, you know, the boomer generation has the least amount of interest in animal protein is what I was seeing from some of the survey results there from, I think, Sir Kano was sharing or it was Ketchum, which, you know, it's interesting to see that data.
00:09:53
Speaker
And I think that's one of the reasons this, you know, the Chicken Marketing Summit is so valuable is all the different insight that comes together there.
00:10:00
Speaker
And
00:10:02
Speaker
You know, that was one of those that just kind of stood out to me as, no, this generation, not necessarily rejecting it, but, you know, overall, but a large portion of it is, a much larger portion is rejecting animal protein or the alternative protein than the younger generation.
00:10:21
Speaker
And they're a little bit more inclined to test it out.
00:10:25
Speaker
and see if they like it.
00:10:27
Speaker
You know, the older generation seems to kind of think of that as maybe a mystery meat, but they're not really sure.
Convenience Foods and Chicken Trends
00:10:36
Speaker
And more so, it sounds like the cell-based protein that, you know, there's even less adoption within the older generation for the cell-based or cell-cultured protein item.
00:10:56
Speaker
Now, you mentioned grandma's preference for the chicken Kiev and that being the perfect portion and convenient.
00:11:03
Speaker
But what role do you see for convenience foods moving forward, such as air fryer ready products?
00:11:10
Speaker
I use my air fryer all the time.
00:11:13
Speaker
I'm a big fan.
00:11:15
Speaker
I know that you don't have one yet, but I really think you should invest in it.
00:11:19
Speaker
But how are these convenience foods playing a role in the future?
00:11:23
Speaker
Yeah, you're right.
00:11:24
Speaker
You bring up the air fryer and the chicken seems very well suited.
00:11:28
Speaker
And I think one of the statistics I brought to the table during my session was that I had heard in an article that more folks have an air fryer in their kitchen today than they do a coffee maker.
00:11:42
Speaker
which to me is surprising.
00:11:45
Speaker
And I was thinking, you know, at the conference, you've got more people probably that had coffee that morning than used an air fryer, right?
00:11:52
Speaker
But certainly the chicken type offerings definitely seem very well suited for the air fryer.
00:12:00
Speaker
You think of things like wings and chicken nuggets, chicken tenders, they all, mostly, most of those packages you could buy in the freezer aisle,
00:12:09
Speaker
already have air fryer instructions on the bag, right, of how to prepare these.
00:12:17
Speaker
If not, they're pretty easily adaptable to that particular convenient appliance and make delicious food out of it, right?
00:12:25
Speaker
So I do think that that plays well for chicken.
00:12:29
Speaker
kind of moving forward that folks are seeking out these convenient offerings, also appliances that, you know, help them to prepare, you know, what could be, I guess, considered a gourmet meal when you think about the
00:12:45
Speaker
the product that comes out of an air fryer versus what they would have microwaved or even an oven or something like that.
00:12:53
Speaker
And it cuts the time in half in terms of the cooking time and that sort of thing.
00:12:57
Speaker
So overall, that seems like a trend that is likely to continue into 2035 when I think about the future there.
00:13:06
Speaker
You know, that seems like it's one that's catching on.
00:13:10
Speaker
You've had a lot of appliances that have made their way into the kitchen over the years, and that definitely seems
Ethnic Diversity and Meat Preferences
00:13:15
Speaker
like a winner.
00:13:15
Speaker
Maybe they've owned in on a really good option for cooking items.
00:13:23
Speaker
And one of the other themes in regard to millennial and Gen Z eating preferences is the interest in trying new cuisines, new ingredients, cooking and
00:13:36
Speaker
at home, finding recipes to try out with different spices, something that, of course, is driven by viral social media trends and just a general interest from television shows, I think.
00:13:51
Speaker
But beyond that interest, how is the changing ethnic makeup of the U.S. population influencing chicken trends?
00:14:03
Speaker
Yeah, if you look at the demographic shift, you know, you've got, you know, the mix of different ethnicities.
00:14:14
Speaker
A percent of the population that is considered all white is decreasing where you've got a portion of the Hispanic population is growing.
00:14:24
Speaker
One of the things that we're just thinking about that is the traditional cuisine and makeup.
00:14:31
Speaker
You know, in the U.S., traditionally, there's been favoritism towards white meat, you know, breast meat.
00:14:40
Speaker
And from a production standpoint, the genetics that have been utilized by the industry have supported, you know, growth in the bird, disproportionately favoring more white meat.
00:14:54
Speaker
Thinking about where this is headed moving forward, if there is a growing preference towards dark meat, which a lot of these cuisines are more prevalent with dark meat than white meat, probably needs to be a conversation with producers thinking about that.
00:15:17
Speaker
One of the things I've been doing this year is looking at how is that taking hold?
00:15:22
Speaker
Are we really seeing more preference towards dark meat in the U.S.?
00:15:27
Speaker
Is that starting to emerge?
00:15:28
Speaker
And so I took and compared, you know, old storage inventories with exports of legs and leg quarters.
00:15:40
Speaker
And over time, those two things correlate pretty closely together.
00:15:45
Speaker
But what we've seen this year is that you've had the export side of the equation dropping, which could suggest that maybe we've got backup of dark meat clearing through the market where it's having difficulty clearing through the market if it's not being exported.
00:16:04
Speaker
And that would probably show up in the cold storage holdings, but it hasn't yet.
00:16:08
Speaker
So we haven't really seen cold storage inventories rise for dark meat despite declining exports.
00:16:15
Speaker
This suggests to me that what we're seeing in the near term is the shift in this preference towards more dark meat clearing through the domestic markets.
00:16:24
Speaker
This makes sense on two fronts in that, you know, consumers are looking for more of a value type offering and they're seeing that in, you know, dark meat.
00:16:33
Speaker
Dark meat's typically a lower price point than what white meat is, specifically leg quarters or whole legs.
00:16:41
Speaker
But also, I do think there's this growing preference to use dark meat in the U.S., and that is addressing changing ethnicity, but also, you know, it's the flavor profile that they may be looking for.
Consumer Preferences and Marketing Strategies
00:16:55
Speaker
I'll show you a little bit of my cards here.
00:16:58
Speaker
I've always kind of favored dark meat over white meat just for the flavor.
00:17:03
Speaker
And, you know, overall, I think consumers are starting to see that as well.
00:17:07
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:17:09
Speaker
Given everything that we've discussed so far, how might these changing consumer preferences and demographics influence poultry product development and marketing strategies in the next decade?
00:17:24
Speaker
Well, that's a good question.
00:17:25
Speaker
I think, you know, there's a lot of changes that have been coming at us in the last couple of years.
00:17:32
Speaker
I do think continuing to think about the convenience offering will be will be important.
00:17:40
Speaker
Continuing to think about product attributes and putting those in the right place in the packaging.
00:17:46
Speaker
But also, you know, I was hearing you better make sure that you've got a, you know, a strong.
00:17:53
Speaker
social media presence and in the right spot for these Gen Z consumers to see what you're doing, the best practices that you have, either as a producer or consumer facing channel to ensure that they see all the good work that you're doing.
00:18:09
Speaker
And, you know, it seems like that, you know, that strategy is there, but not necessarily consistent across the industry.
00:18:19
Speaker
And, you know, I look at some of the things that the chicken check in the National Chicken Council, their work on social media, you know, some of that very effective and in educating the consumer about what what the chicken industry is doing.
00:18:36
Speaker
And I think those are some important cues that, you know, I kind of picked up at the conference that I continue to kind of hear out of the industry.
00:18:44
Speaker
I'm hopeful that
00:18:47
Speaker
The folks either on the producer side or consumer facing channels are seeing this as well and starting to think about how they address those needs.
Competition from Beef and Pork
00:18:56
Speaker
How is competition from beef and pork likely to challenge poultry in the decade ahead?
00:19:05
Speaker
And if it's not a challenge, what opportunities does it present for the poultry industry?
00:19:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good question, too.
00:19:14
Speaker
We think about, you know, where does chicken sit in terms of the consumer basket, you know, and basket of goods?
00:19:25
Speaker
over the next 10 years, I was kind of looking back at what happened over the last 10 years in terms of availability.
00:19:34
Speaker
The consumer, my thought around red meat has evolved a little bit over the last 10 years in that I think from a dietary standpoint, nutritional standpoint, chicken was perceived as higher protein, lower fat, and that was better.
00:19:50
Speaker
for the consumer, you know, and now I think we pass forward to present time and you're seeing consumers, consumer demand for beef is very, very strong.
00:20:02
Speaker
um and much of that is kind of this change in mindset of the nutritional attributes that they're receiving from those protein items when we look at the wholesale market what's going on right now across the animal protein sector um you know red meat's still seeing very strong demand specifically uh beef this year at the same time
00:20:25
Speaker
We've got a shrinking cattle herd in cow-calf segment of the beef industry.
00:20:34
Speaker
And that will continue to play out over the next probably three, four years that we likely will be in a situation where we've got tighter cattle supplies than what the demand side of the equation is.
00:20:50
Speaker
The way I see that playing out, we'll continue to see high beef prices as a result.
00:20:55
Speaker
And likely the demand side of the equation contributes to those higher beef prices.
00:21:01
Speaker
You know, and my crystal ball is probably a little bit fuzzy on that side.
00:21:08
Speaker
And so, you know, if we look at pork,
00:21:13
Speaker
Overall, you know, not necessarily a similar situation, but hog producers have suffered from very weak profitability over the last couple of years.
00:21:24
Speaker
I don't really see that segment growing all that much in terms of production.
00:21:28
Speaker
And from a consumption standpoint, pork consumption in the U.S. has really been flat around 50 pounds per capita annually, you know, over the last 20 years or so.
00:21:38
Speaker
It just hasn't changed all that much.
00:21:41
Speaker
Beef consumption, I think we're at 58 pounds per capita last year.
00:21:44
Speaker
We'll be down around 56 or 54 this year.
00:21:47
Speaker
And USDA, I was kind of looking at their long-term estimates, and they're thinking by 2030, we'll be down around 50 to 52 pounds, something like that.
00:21:57
Speaker
And this is largely a result of those tighter cattle supplies that are ahead of us and incorporating that long-term downswing and availability through that
Broiler Production and Future Growth
00:22:08
Speaker
period.
00:22:08
Speaker
Now, on the flip side, when you look at chicken,
00:22:11
Speaker
It's continued to grow as an industry.
00:22:14
Speaker
I noted, you know, looking at where we've gone over the last 10 years, the broiler industry has added 10 billion pounds of broiler production annually.
00:22:26
Speaker
since 2013.
00:22:28
Speaker
So thinking about how much was produced annually back in 2013, it's around 36 billion pounds.
00:22:34
Speaker
And today we're closer to 46 billion pounds annually in terms of broiler production.
00:22:41
Speaker
Largely, this has been adding pounds to the bird, not adding more birds to the system.
00:22:47
Speaker
And, you know, overall, like I said before, that's kind of
00:22:51
Speaker
put more white meat in the mix, but overall that larger bird segment continues to grow in terms of what's available for consumers.
00:23:01
Speaker
So it's always a changing dynamic, but production likely has a lot to do with what the consumer will have available in terms of the animal protein mix throughout the next 10 years.
00:23:15
Speaker
And given the increased production and the USDA projections,
00:23:21
Speaker
for poultry consumption growth.
00:23:25
Speaker
How do you see this extending through 2030 and then beyond 2035?
00:23:29
Speaker
Well, it's pretty amazing.
00:23:33
Speaker
You think about it today, the U.S. consumer on average is eating 100 pounds of chicken annually.
00:23:42
Speaker
And the red meat side of it is just a little bit over that when you combine pork and beef.
00:23:47
Speaker
when we look out to to the 20 to 30 timeframe, like I mentioned, the beef and pork probably not growing overall as as a combined red meat number, but
00:24:02
Speaker
You know, the chicken side of it is likely expected to grow to somewhere around 108, 109 or 108 or 109 pounds annually per capita.
00:24:13
Speaker
So in terms of the growth, you know, it's expected to be there.
00:24:19
Speaker
Now, you could look at that and say that's just a trend, right?
00:24:22
Speaker
It's just trend line data that suggests that we're going to grow to that amount.
00:24:26
Speaker
When I look at the near term in terms of production, the broiler side of the equation doesn't seem to really be growing all that much here nearby.
00:24:37
Speaker
And I think
00:24:39
Speaker
Part of that is this higher interest rate environment, higher capital costs.
00:24:43
Speaker
Labor continues to be a challenge for animal protein in general, but the broiler integrators have struggled with that in the last couple of years.
00:24:52
Speaker
I don't know that there's necessarily a big solution in terms of adding labor, but the broiler industry continues to put more automation in a plant where they can replace labor.
00:25:02
Speaker
So they're kind of overcoming that labor shortage in certain areas.
00:25:06
Speaker
But still there, I don't see a whole lot of greenfield plants being put up in the next couple of years, maybe some changing hands.
00:25:14
Speaker
But if we think about, can we get that production growth by 2035 to support 10 more pounds or so of broiler or chicken consumption and the consumer side?
00:25:28
Speaker
It's tough to get there in the next couple of years.
00:25:30
Speaker
I think we're probably going to be kind of flat in terms of broiler production and consumption here in the near term.
Feed Costs and Production Impacts
00:25:36
Speaker
So some of that growth comes a little bit later down the line.
00:25:39
Speaker
Excellent.
00:25:41
Speaker
Now switching gears to tie this all back into the interest of the feed strategy audience.
00:25:49
Speaker
What's the outlook for feed costs throughout the rest of 2024 and into 2025?
00:25:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think we set that up nicely.
00:25:57
Speaker
So thinking about the production side of it, typically when you have a low feed cost environment, the broiler industry will look at that as opportunity to grow.
00:26:09
Speaker
We saw that from 2015 through 2019, where you had what I would call some some
00:26:17
Speaker
rapid expansion and we saw the industry add I think somewhere around what was it eight or nine new broiler plants in that time frame.
00:26:29
Speaker
There were quite a few I remember trying to keep track with all the announcements and you know a lot of that was due to prolonged low feed cost environment.
00:26:41
Speaker
You know lower corn prices, lower soybean meal prices,
00:26:45
Speaker
all really supported that effort to grow the industry.
00:26:49
Speaker
The last two years, we've had excessively high, or last three years, rather, we've had excessively high corn prices.
00:26:58
Speaker
Soybean prices elevated as well.
00:27:00
Speaker
Much of that has come down this year as we had a really rather robust harvest of those row crops in the U.S. last year.
00:27:10
Speaker
that's blending into some lower prices this year.
00:27:14
Speaker
It's good for animal feeders to have these lower prices on the feed side.
00:27:20
Speaker
On the broiler side, they're first to benefit from that little feed cost environment.
00:27:29
Speaker
So as those prices are coming down, they're seeing it through their feed rations first.
00:27:34
Speaker
Whereas if cattle are sitting in the feed yards,
00:27:37
Speaker
you know, for 12 months or so or shorter, six to 12 months, you know, they're not going to see the benefit of those lower feed costs until kind of later in the cycle.
00:27:49
Speaker
So, you know, overall, I think our expectation is the robust harvest that we had last year and what seems to be shaping up to be a pretty good year this year for corn production and soybean production in the U.S.
00:28:07
Speaker
That's us up for a relatively mild feed cost environment for animal feeders.
00:28:16
Speaker
The other thing we've been kind of pointing to for a couple of years is the expansion of biodiesel production and use in the U.S. and how that has affected crush on the soybean side.
00:28:31
Speaker
The long term trend has been to crush soybeans for meal or for production there.
00:28:37
Speaker
And now we're seeing a switch to the emphasis on the oil side for biodiesel.
00:28:44
Speaker
A few of my colleagues and I put together a report earlier this year.
00:28:50
Speaker
highlighting what we anticipate to see to be a relatively low meal price environment for animal feeders here over the next year or so at least, as we're thinking about this additional crush capacity that has come online and what's to come online moving forward.
00:29:08
Speaker
So, you know, not necessarily good news for the producer on the corn and bean side, but for the animal protein producer, the animal feeder,
00:29:20
Speaker
You know, not quite back to what we had from 2015 to 2019, but certainly a better situation than what they've been working through from 2021 through 2023.
00:29:34
Speaker
Now, given the poultry consumption trends, consumer behavior trends, how many of these
00:29:44
Speaker
impact feed formulation and production strategies for poultry feed manufacturers moving forward?
00:29:52
Speaker
Good question.
00:29:52
Speaker
Thinking about different additives and different feed items that could be put into the formulation, it can have an impact on product attributes.
00:30:09
Speaker
And, you know, I'm not sure I'm quite well versed to kind of get into some of the different additives that could be put into the feed formulations.
00:30:19
Speaker
But overall, it can have an impact on what we're seeing for, you know, for what's available for the consumer.
00:30:28
Speaker
I think back to some of the specialty products and have been watching things like organics, you know, organic chicken over the last
00:30:36
Speaker
last decade or so.
00:30:37
Speaker
And, you know, I'm not really sure that there's been really excessive growth there.
00:30:44
Speaker
But overall, there's still a spot for the, you know, with the consumer on those type of items with those attributes or especially poultry side.
00:30:54
Speaker
So, you know, that's been interesting to watch.
00:30:57
Speaker
And I think that trend will continue to be kind of flat moving forward.
Strategic Advice for Feed Producers
00:31:03
Speaker
All right.
00:31:04
Speaker
And our final question, do you have any advice for poultry feed producers and industry professionals to help them prepare for these market conditions coming up here in 2035?
00:31:18
Speaker
Yeah, one of the things that I think, you know, I think back to my days on a sourcing desk for for chicken.
00:31:25
Speaker
So this is a little while ago.
00:31:29
Speaker
But, you know, I just remembered how important conversations were an open flow of communication.
00:31:36
Speaker
with producers when I was thinking about what I was seeing from a consumer standpoint or, you know, what marketing folks were telling me.
00:31:44
Speaker
And I think make sure you're keeping those lines of communication open and that as you're thinking about these trends,
00:31:52
Speaker
think about opportunities to where you can have those conversations that are deep thought and well invested in producing for the future.
00:32:01
Speaker
Some of these things may look like really long-term projects, but those steps along the way can continue to be effective in terms of meeting that end goal.
00:32:14
Speaker
So that's where I would kind of be thinking or putting my thinking hat in terms of what I've seen over the years invested in the industry.
00:32:25
Speaker
Thank you so much for your time today, Brian.
00:32:29
Speaker
And thanks to everybody for tuning in.