As we wrap with legacy and future vision, in a world that constantly demands growth, how do you measure success beyond the bottom line and what do you hope the legacy of Schwartz Farms will be within the swine industry? Beyond the bottom line, the reinvestment and the opportunities created. That’s really what it’s all about. As far as legacy, I have run our hog operation for our family operation. I’ve done that for a long time now. And really what you want to create is a legacy where you aren’t missed. If I have a legacy that is positive, I probably won’t know that for 10 to 15 years. And I think that’s how you have to look at it. You know, a private business has the ability not to look quarter to quarter like a publicly traded company; the pressure that they have to make profits every quarter, we can look at the long view. Many decisions we make in production are based on the long view. An example is just in investment in fixed assets. We have invested many fixed assets in finishing barns. We still rely largely upon contract growers to finish most of our production, but we have invested a material amount in fixed assets of finishing facilities and farrowing. In the short term, I’m better off on the inventory and less fixed assets. In the long term, when these assets are depreciated out, I’m hoping to have an advantage over a totally rented company. The legacy I hope when I do step down is that we have the people in place 10 to 20 years from now, there will be success. When you look 10 to 20 years ahead, what innovations or shifts do you believe will profoundly change how Schwartz operates, and how are you positioning the company now to lead to those future landscapes? I’m optimistic about our future. We’ve worked hard on succession and continue to work hard on succession on both ownership and management, not just family, but the whole system. And part of being consistent with not focusing on what you’re good at, but focusing on what the challenges are - the next generation of our company and all production companies are going to face a lot of challenges, but they’re going to have to be better at certain things than I have been at just because of the world they’re going to live in. There’s going to continue to be more regulation, more scrutiny on our social license, our ability to operate, that’s going to continue to be questioned more. We’re going to have to work more on sustainability.
And most of us weren’t raised that way, we came up just raising pigs, and that’s what we thought we had to know. I think strategic planning will be more important. I will admit that I was always more of a reactor looking for opportunities, and we grew a lot by acquisition and that’s worked for us. Having a four- or five-year plan with flexibility built into it helps. It can’t be too rigid or, as fast as things change, you won’t be quick enough to react to them. But even from a personal standpoint, sometimes not having a roadmap — you know, I’m blessed with a very patient wife, but I never told her that I was going to be where we are today, and I never had a plan, I just kind of reacted to opportunities, and that’s how we got here. It’s important to have a strategy, so that everybody understands where you’re going. They’re going to face disruptors. Look at the disruptors that the retail industry has gone through with e-commerce. I don’t know what the disruptors are going to be in our industry. If I knew what they were, they wouldn’t be a disruptor, right? But I think when the disruptors come, to react to them and not to bury your head in the sand, whatever that might be - whether consumer trends or whatever - that they respond to that. I think there’s many opportunities for them and in this country in general, there’s opportunities for lots of things to get involved in, and from a business standpoint. I’m optimistic that we have the right people, they have the right attitude. They realize that they need to be servant leaders and they need to build teams and 10 to 20 years from now, it depends so much what these disruptors are, what they’re going to need to respond to, and maybe we have to diversify. I do have concerns about concentration. We do have a lot of investment in live hog production, and that is a lot of concentration, so they’re going to have their hands full. But I think ultimately I’m optimistic that they’re up to it.
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