Source:  Rita Jane Gabbett, MEATINGPLACE.COM, 1/26/11

Tyson Foods CEO and President Donnie Smith held up a recent Wall Street Journal editorial that blasted U.S. corn-based ethanol policy as potentially immoral and smiled.

“It makes a lot more sense for us to burn our trash than burn our feed,” he told attendees at the Animal Agriculture Sustainability Summit at the International Poultry Expo here.

In November 2010, a joint venture between Tyson and Syntroleum Corp. started producing renewable fuels from non-food grade animal fat and greases. Smith said the plant is running at about half capacity at this point.

Smith outlined four aspects of Tyson’s sustainability efforts relative to people, the planet, products and profits, noting that profits are an important part of the sustainability equation in order to finance social and environmental efforts.

Wall Street analysts have recently downgraded their forecasts for Tyson’s profits, given escalating corn and soybean prices. 

Meatingplace caught up with Smith after his speech and asked if he thought rising corn and soybean prices would force chicken production cuts over the next 12 months in the industry or at Tyson.

“I can’t speak for the industry. We made comments in our last earnings statement. We had gotten a little ahead of ourselves in poultry production in Q1. We are correction that in Q2, just like we said we would do. So we are consistent with what we said we would do. We are sticking to our plans,” he told Meatingplace.
Asked if he agreed with Wall Street concerns about Tyson profits, Smith said, “We are reporting earnings in two weeks, which is why I can’t comment.”

Tyson beat analysts’ expectations in November when it last reported earnings. At that time, Tyson executives said they planned to offset higher feed prices with operational and pricing improvements. 

In terms of Tyson’s approach to profitability this year, Smith told attendees, “We will continue with our 'back to basics’ approach.”

In terms of sustainability efforts, Smith offered this advice to others in the industry: define sustainability, take an inventory of where you are now, be sure to benchmark your progress, communicate widely about your sustainability plans and involve associations in your efforts.

“Tell your story before someone tells it for you,” he warned his industry colleagues.

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