Challenging the 'Meat Industrial Complex'

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

Breaking into any industry dominated by large, established companies is notoriously difficult, especially in food and agriculture. But Clifford Pollard of Cream Co Meats argues that supporting smaller companies and small producers is worth the effort. Cream Co Meats is helping independent producers compete within a meat supply chain built for the large consolidated companies.

Pollard… “ The meat industrial complex is a very interesting place. And it really depends on species, but maybe focusing on one of the species that's the most commonly talked about or discussed, and kind of the zeitgeist of food is beef, right? So 85% of all of beef production is controlled by four companies. And those four companies, they're not letting a Cream Co Meats in the door for processing. They're not letting a small rancher in the door for processing. To a certain degree, you could say for good reason, because their environments are built to process 2,800 head of cattle a day. They've built an entire assembly line that does that, and it does that very well. It's difficult for them to stop and do forty head or a hundred head or sort of smaller denomination within that. But unfortunately it is the case that those four entities dominate the entire industry. And the other 15% is a mix of size, professionalism, technology. And so really our job is to try to build up that 15%, to make it more resilient, to make it more robust.”

Learn more about Cream Co Meats at creamcomeats.com.