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We have now reached a point where the characteristics and policies of food companies, processors and related firms combined with their level of cooperation with government, will seemingly determine the food available in the future and what its cost will be. And believe it or not, these attributes above will gain all of their power over what the production sector can produce through consumer demand, which is how it is supposed to work but this has a twist. Consumers are being shaped to willingly hand over a chunk of their ability to guide the future of food through what they purchase to preferences about food company attributes. Time for the whistle stop tour of the evolution of the mindsets of production.
Pig production
Prior to 1980 there was “pig production”. Production units were small and in many cases the producer knew each pig by sight and in many cases the sire (especially) that it came out of. The only records that were kept were purchase and sales receipts stuffed in a shoebox in the office closet for the tax regulators. Very few things were measured for efficiency calculations, so records were pretty much all about total production and total deaths. This was the same system used in countries dominated by communism prior to the early 1990s. All that really mattered was total net production against the plan given from above. Inputs were requisitioned. Not much changed because anyone trying to get larger was plagued by outbreaks of disease though the eastern-block countries tried first and had some successes.
Meat production
In the late 1980s, the invention of all-in/all-out production allowed scale to develop and massive influxes of capital came into the production industry driving down per unit costs and creating lots of new profit opportunities. Everyone got giddy. The mindset quickly shifted from pig production to meat production. Individuals were no longer important. Ones that did not fit the group were culled and the transformation from treatments for pigs to a focus on “herd health” left individuals behind. Records expanded dramatically because the pigs were in buildings, pens and crates. The record systems were born and soon benchmarks like total kgs production per sow per year and carcass feed efficiency marked a turning point toward a mindset of “meat production”.
Food production
Once the pork chain focused on meat, it had to move large amounts of pork commensurate with the new, large-scale production centers and so a serious turn toward wooing the export markets began. The US and much of the rest of the pork production areas began to practice something Denmark producers had known for 100 years. If you provide what people in a specific country or area really wanted, they will buy more and pay more per kg. sold. What they wanted was the “production of food”, not systems that produced “lean muscle tissue at least cost”. In the US this led to fashioning cutting lines to specifically breakdown the carcass in the style valued by the export target so things like Minolta scores (color of the meat), how the consumer pork product was cut, tied and presented and sufficient extra quantity temporarily made available for seasonal festivals around demand generated by religious or cultural beliefs took off. Now just about one-third of the value of the pig in the US is from export sales. It’s higher in a few other countries.
Production of food with certain attributes
It was not long until environmental and related issues began to drive demand toward the attributes of the food, rather than the food itself. By this I mean things like organic (biologique), outdoor reared, antibiotic-free, free from neurological tissue (even though BSE is a non-issue), animal welfare certified etc. At least these were mostly attributes of the meat even if they could not be observed in the meat at purchasing and had to maintain brand assurances of the unseen but touted attributes.
Company attributes
In maybe the fastest move between mindsets yet, there has been a distinct shift toward demand for company attributes. This is why the US and other places are scrambling to set up programs which demonstrate that individual production systems and the industry are “sustainable”. This pressure has led companies to join the ESG bandwagon (Environment, Social, Governance attributes) which is a system that guides companies toward, and evaluates their compliance with, global sustainability and environmental goals. Enmeshed in this move is large company compliance with governmental goals both for their own nation and as a part of fulfilling changes promised at global get-togethers like climate change meetings. Getting close to government and pleasing its ministers provides all the lubrication needed to slide ever closer to government-approved supply attributes, as the pathway to profit for them will have fewer roadblocks and hassles if they do. Over time, starting with our children, governments through educators (themselves snuggled up to government) and then through messaging directed at adults, are shaping these preferences.
Luckily, pig producers, sensing the opportunity, have begun to re-emerge and are selling their pork products online so you can have a lot more choice about the set of attributes you prefer. Mine is taste.
