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Cargill is one of the largest national suppliers of fresh turkeys, and this year the company has enlisted some 70 family-owned individual turkey farms in Missouri and Texas in its white Honeysuckle traceability program. Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Americans will consume 45 to 46 million turkeys during the next Thanksgiving break in the United States, and another 22 million during Christmas holidays, according to data from the Turkish National Federation. This translates into about six billion pounds of turkey meat, a number that has remained fairly substantial over the past five years, according to the USDA.
What is likely to change this season, however, is Such as Consumers across the United States will be able to enjoy their Thanksgiving bird. In particular, food giant Cargill, the largest private company in the United States, is now allowing consumers to learn all about the farm where they grew their favorite proteins and farmers who raised them, thanks to the new program traceability of the company based on the technology blockchain.
It is "from the farm to the table" on a large scale.
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Cargill is one of the largest national suppliers of fresh turkeys, and this year the company has enlisted some 70 family-owned individual turkey farms in Missouri and Texas in its white Honeysuckle traceability program, which records every bird from the farm up to retail. About one-third of the company's 600,000 large Honeysuckle White hens – which will start appearing in major retailers like Walmart, Kroger, Safeway and Amazon as of Saturday, November 10th – will be part of the program.
"Each Honeysuckle White turkey will have an identification code, which can be placed on a website that will guide the consumer towards the specific farm that raised that exact turkey," explained Cargill's information manager for animal proteins and salt , Debra Bauler. "From a marketing perspective, it's a way for consumers to feel in touch with the American farmer – with those who are responsible for the food they need for their families." And from a technology perspective, it represents the complete digitalization of the supply chain We believe that both are long-term competitive advantages for our product ".
To promote these new blockchain-enabled turkeys, Cargill has produced a series of moving TV commercials that cleverly link the tradition of American Thanksgiving to the American family farm.
Fox Business Network commentator Ethan Bearman believes that Cargill's traceability program will become a standard in the food industry in the not too distant future. "We, as consumers, want to know what we are eating, where it comes from and what has happened." The Honeysuckle White program, though new, is indeed a window into the future of where the wholeness of the industry is headed. Today, most of the non-local food is a big black box, and we only hope that the FDA, CDC and USDA are doing their job, "observes Bearman. "The average consumer of tomorrow will be expected to have full access to where the wheat was grown in their bread, what were the conditions of the cow that supplied the milk in their ice cream and who collected the grapes in their glass of Pinot The White Honeysuckle traceability program is a watershed moment in the food retail industry. "
Sharon Albertson is one of the farmers participating in the launch of the Honeysuckle White traceability. "Now consumers can see how hard we work and all the efforts and attentions needed to bring that bird to the Thanksgiving table," said Albertson, who runs a multigenerational farm near Eldon, Missouri, which provides more than 60,000 turkeys a year at Cargill since 1995. "I think after families get to know us, reading about our multigenerational farm and seeing pictures and videos of our family at work, they will have a better understanding of the pride we take in the world. raise these turkeys … I hope this increases confidence in the Honeysuckle White brand. "
The Albertson farm has been supplying over 60,000 turkeys to Cargill since 1995. Cargill
Jonah Stillman is a renowned expert on Generation Z, the cohort of about 70 million Americans who were born between 1995 and 2012. It applauds Cargill's move to empower consumers with new features such as traceability, but warns society not to get caught up too much by the "cool factor" associated with the blockchain. "Generation Z consumers will not be dazzled by innovative applications such as blockchain, and we expect companies to naturally allow consumers to know the supply chain behind what we eat."
"Companies that involve us and give us information about the supply chain of their products in a transparent way will gain our loyalty and feed our passion." Those who are late to realize this will have a lot of ground to invent when our generation will become an important driver in the market, "added Stillman.
Cargill's traceability program will be in place during the 2018 holidays, but all indicators suggest that the program could become a standard feature in an even higher percentage of their turkeys next year.
"If we discover – as we expect – that consumers are passionate about the idea of getting to know the farmers who raised their turkey on holiday, we will probably introduce this traceability feature to an even larger number of food products in the near future" , said Bauler. "Even if some people do not end up looking for the origins of their turkey, we assume that there is a certain sense of trust and transparency passed on to the consumer simply knowing that they could have, if they chose to do so."
This is an important observation for some inhabitants of picky cities for whom the idea that a turkey was once a living and breathing animal could be TMI and would rather not know the background behind their steaming slice of turkey. sitting on a holiday plate, adjacent to a pile of mashed potatoes.
There is a further potential benefit to the Honeysuckle white tracking program that may have escaped Cargill's marketing experts: with the increasingly divisive political mood of this season, which is set to create more than average Tension around the typical Thanksgiving Table of the extended family members – being able to talk about the turkey and where it has been raised can divert the conversation from entering into more controversial topics … at least until the tryptophan in soporific chicken comes into action, forcing everyone to seek refuge in a nearby La-Z-Boy.
