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Article: Pork sector focused on sustainability innovation post COVID-19
30 June 2020
As the pork sector emerges from the impacts of the COVID-19
pandemic, innovation with a focus on sustainability is a major
priority for the industry according to National Pork Board (NPB)
CEO Bill Even and Smithfield Foods Executive Vice President of
Fresh Pork Sales and Marketing Joe Weber.
Despite challenges on the supply side, including meat plant
shutdowns that saw some farmers forced to cull hogs unable to be
processed, "our pork sales have tripled" during the COVID-19
pandemic, Even said. "Our big footprint is generally in the I would
say in the grocery aisle, and so that really helped us out there"
as more consumers purchased food for consumption at home during
pandemic related lockdowns," he explained.
"What you saw, both in the US as well as around the world, was
people immediately trying to find things that were familiar or
fresh, were things that they knew were going to provide them
protein," Even said.
The pandemic underscored the "just-in-time" nature of the food
supply chain, Weber said. "As a society, we've got to think about
that going forward and how we adapt," he noted, adding a prediction
that stronger relationships across the food supply system will be
key to that discussion.
Looking ahead, NPB polling shows 89% of consumers are interested
in how the industry will fix supply chain issues laid bare during
the pandemic, and nearly three-quarters are supportive of change
even if it increases the cost of pork, Even noted.
Automation and robotics are one area that the industry is
already looking to leverage towards greater supply chain integrity,
Even and Weber said. "I think everyone's trying to work on
automation and robotics and that's going to continue," Weber
remarked. "It's going to be further continued as you think about
COVID-19."
Consumers interested in sustainability
Using blockchain is among the innovations the pork industry is
already working on, Even said. "The National Pork Board and the
pork producers paid for the creation of a new blockchain
traceability pilot, where we looked at tracking our sustainability
metrics from the farm all the way through the production system and
on out to the consumer," he detailed.
Sustainably produced foods is part of a longer-term shift in
consumer preferences, Even said. Two-thirds of consumers "regularly
or sometimes think about the environmental footprint when they're
thinking about getting their food," he noted. "There's a need for
us to innovate in this sector if we're going to meet the demands of
the consumer post-COVID."
At Smithfield, Weber revealed that "one of the most exciting
things is our commitment to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by
25% by the year 2025." One way the company is looking to meet that
goal is through the deployment of methane recovery systems, he
observed. "We've covered some of these hog lagoons and [are] taking
hog waste, digesting it and making renewable energy and natural gas
and selling it back into the pipelines," Weber stated. "And we're
doing that across four or five different states, it's an exciting
project."
One important aspect of the sustainability push is measuring
results, Even commented. To help quantify things, he said NPB has
created a calculator detailing the sector's contribution to
greenhouse gas emissions. "Livestock agriculture accounts for about
9% of US greenhouse gas emissions. I think that surprises a lot of
people that were we're not the demon in the middle of this, but
we've got a role to play," he remarked. For the pork industry
specifically, the contribution is about 0.3%, which he called
"pretty close to neutral."
As the industry looks to achieve complete carbon neutrality,
Even said NPB has partnered with corn and soybean groups since
about 60% of the pork sector's carbon footprint is linked to feed.
"Everybody's got to do their part if we're going to change the end
result and be able to put something on a package label for the
consumer" verifying the product is carbon neutral, he added.