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Tech, consumer trends and the future of chicken innovation
331 Plays7 days ago
Kevin Ryan, co-founder and CEO of Malachite Strategy and Research, joins Elizabeth Doughman, editor, WATT PoultryUSA and Poultry Future, to explore how technology is transforming the chicken consumer experience and how industry leaders can prepare.
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Transcript
Introduction by Elizabeth Duffman
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Future of Poultry podcast series.
00:00:12
Speaker
Hello. I'm Elizabeth Duffman, the editor of WAP, Poultry USA, and Poultry Future.
Keynote Speaker Announcement: Kevin Ryan
00:00:17
Speaker
In today's episode, my guest is Kevin Ryan, the founder and CEO of Malachite Strategy and Research.
00:00:24
Speaker
Kevin will be the keynote speaker for the 2025 Chicken Marketing Summit, scheduled for July twenty eight through 30th, at the DeSoto Savannah in Savannah, Georgia.
About the Chicken Marketing Summit
00:00:34
Speaker
This one-of-a-kind event explores issues and trends in food marketing and consumer chicken consumption patterns and purchasing behavior.
00:00:42
Speaker
Registration is now open at chickenmarketingsummit.com, and I'd like to encourage everyone to attend. Thanks for joining me today, Kevin.
Kevin Ryan's Professional Background
00:00:50
Speaker
Great to be here. First, why don't you tell me a little bit about your experience and background?
00:00:55
Speaker
My background is quite eclectic, which I think a lot of people's are. But I started off in food science, actually protein chemistry, which is apropos for chicken protein chemistry, and then also anthropology. So like a hard science and a soft science, so to speak. And I have a love for the soft science, that's not derogatory. And then I worked for General Mills, worked for General Mills for 15 years, specifically within strategy and innovation. So helping the brands that we all know General Mills.
00:01:20
Speaker
in their strategy and helping them build their pipeline. And then i left General Mills, went to Amazon and basically helped at Amazon with innovation and strategy before founding Malachite. And basically what Malachite does is we help consumer packaged good companies, meat, poultry companies, ingredient companies, also retailers and food service at the front end of strategy, basically trying to help them figure out where they want to go next.
Consumer Expectations in Technology
00:01:47
Speaker
What expectations do today's consumers have about the role technology plays in how they buy, cook, and experience chicken? I think the thing that I think of is there's so much noise out there right now I think consumers are really looking for technology to help them to basically to understand what's important for them.
00:02:04
Speaker
For example, one thing that is really important right now for a lot of people is value. I think that's really important on their minds. And I think what technology does in that sense is it helps them tell them, oh, there's a meal deal here that you can get. And it clears that noise of all these ads coming at me, all these things on my phone coming at me. And it's okay, the technology allows it to be This is for you. Or there's a sale here at this particular place. Or it could be as simple as there's a recipe of how you can make an inexpensive meal with chicken.
00:02:34
Speaker
This is how we can get there. So I think that's one of the things that technology does is it helps get people what they want. I think that's their expectation. In a similar way, I think personalization is exciting for consumers because I think what it does is we talk a lot about AI and But for the consumer, that has to be translated into something.
00:02:52
Speaker
For many, that gets them what flavors that I want. How does AI translate a meal for me? How can that chicken experience, whether or not it's something I make in my home or whether it's something I get at a food service, a food company, how do I get it you know for me? So I think to answer your question in a broad sense, I think really what their expectation is that technology is going to make my life what I want my life to be, so to speak.
00:03:13
Speaker
What technology innovation in the food space are you most excited about right
Impactful 'Mundane' Technologies
00:03:18
Speaker
now? The things that really excite me are probably the most mundane. And I say that, and I know that's not like a really good answer because it's because I think when you you ask people, what's the most exciting technology here, they're going to say something like bioscaffolding to make 3D printed stuff or something like that. But at the end of the day, yes, those are exciting and there's some great technologies that are there and they're going to be. But I think that the more And when I say mundane, what I mean is that there's going to be technologies out there that right now they're not getting a lot of attention. But in aggregate, I think they're going to have a huge impact. So, for example, on the food service side, stuff like data integration systems that connect POS systems with social media sentiment, like that is huge. It happens in the background.
00:03:59
Speaker
Or like back-of-house smart inventory systems that can make ordering much more efficient for back-of-house manager. very impactful for the bottom line when it comes to how much chicken do I have left back there? What's the date on that chicken?
00:04:12
Speaker
All that kind of stuff. Or even something like, I just saw someone talking about smart surfaces, some new technology on smart surfaces to reduce contamination back a house. So really interesting stuff. Or on the retail side or consumer side, I'm really fascinated by in-store consumer decision-making tools like apps,
00:04:29
Speaker
that guide people to specific nutritional purchases. And also one of the other things that I'm interested in right now is wearables. And I know wearables been around a while, but there's some really interesting technology like Oura Ring and things are really talking about blood glucose.
00:04:43
Speaker
And I think all of that, again, it's mundane in the sense of it's not getting a lot of voice in media, but I think all those things are going to add up to being you know really impactful when it comes to the consumer and to companies.
Tech Selection Advice
00:04:57
Speaker
How can industry leaders determine which of the technology trends they should be following? I think there's a lot of hype now around tech. We we live in a ah tech world, and most of that push is by the tech industry, which is not surprising. You're basically talking about people about your product. Now, that doesn't mean that technology isn't going to change the industry because it is. There's so many really interesting technologies that are definitely going to change the industry. But we must see technology as a means to an end and not just the thing itself. My question and the thing that I usually talk about with with leaders is, does this technology deliver on a consumer pain point?
00:05:35
Speaker
Does it do something for them? Because you have to understand, does this provide a differentiating benefit for consumers compared to your competition? You need to make that connection with that technology. Otherwise, it's easy to be swayed by all the talk of AI and all that kind of thing. And I think we're starting to see some of this. I think we're seeing some people actually that bought into the hype of some things and then now they see it and they go, oh,
00:06:00
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not really sure what the ah ROI is on that. When I'm telling folks with which technology to pay attention to, it really is which one's going to make your consumer happy? Which one's going to deliver the job that the consumer wants done?
00:06:12
Speaker
Makes sense. So the Chicken Marketing Summit is obviously chicken
Kevin Ryan's Favorite Dish
00:06:16
Speaker
focused. So I have to ask, what's your favorite chicken dish to eat? It's a hard one because I love lots of chicken dishes. The one that are probably like, I have to order if I see it on a menu is it's a Vietnamese dish. So in Vietnam, they traditionally cook fish in caramel sauce.
00:06:36
Speaker
And I've had chicken made that way. And it is delicious. So basically you cook chicken in caramel sauce. sauce which I know sounds amazingly sweet but it's not it's just caramelized sugar that has been they've added in fish sauce and they've added in garlic and they've added up it's delicious it's got everything it's sweet sour salty umami it's everything all at once so that's probably my favorite dishes chicken caramel Oh, I've never tried that, but I'm going to have to put that on my list of things to to try the next time
Closing Remarks and Call to Action
00:07:05
Speaker
I'm going out.
00:07:05
Speaker
Thanks again, Kevin, and thanks to you for tuning again To hear more of Kevin's insights and learn about consumer behavior and trends impacting chicken consumption, register to attend by visiting chickenmarketingsummit.com on July twenty eighth through 30th at the DeSoto Savannah in Savannah, Georgia. For more episodes of the Future Poultry podcast, please can subscribe on wattpoultry.com or wherever you access podcasts.