It’s a major focus for us as a publicly traded company. There’s new regulations coming at us that will require additional disclosures and then further mitigating some of our water and resource uses, but it’s been a major focus for Seaboard Foods over our 27-year history. So we use quite a bit of water, both at the farms to feed our animals, as well as within the plants. And so we’ve really focused on three phases, being better for the environment and Earth, being better for our employees and better for our business. And when those three things come together, right? It’s great to reduce our water usage and electric usage, but when we do that, you can see the impact that you’re making within our business. So we’ve had a major focus at all three of our facilities, as well as at our farms, in order to drive down the water and electric usage. In addition to that, we’ve invested hundreds of millions of dollars to cover close to 80 lagoons throughout Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas that are really on the leading edge of technology for renewable natural gas capture at our farms. And you look at that, and yes, there is a financial reason to do that, but it’s also better for our environment. You know, it’s capturing that gas that otherwise would have made it into the atmosphere. We’re able to capture it, put it on the pipelines throughout Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, and then sell the credits in California or into Europe as well. So those are some of the big focuses for our business around water, electric usage, and then the renewable natural gas production that we have down in our growing region as well. What about leadership challenges, Chad? Are there some key challenges that you faced or you anticipate facing, and as a new leader at Seaboard, how do you plan to address them? Is there a good example? The toughest challenge any leader will ever make in their business is becoming the leader of their peers. I’m moving from the head of sales to the CEO role, right? So I go from a partner to the peers within my team to lead that group. So I expect that to be my biggest challenge moving forward. I’m a very different leader than what Peter is. Peter turned 62 this year, and I just turned 40 years old. So very different dynamic in terms of how I lead, the aggressiveness that I show, versus Peter, you know — we’re different leaders, right? And so the whole organization will have to adjust.
PEOPLE ARE WILLING TO PUT OUT $80 FOR A STEAK (AT A RESTAURANT) BECAUSE THEY KNOW THEY ARE GOING TO GET A QUALITY EATING EXPERIENCE. THE BEEF INDUSTRY HAS DONE A GREAT JOB OF GIVING FINANCIAL INCENTIVE BACK TO THE FARMERS TO USE BETTER GENETICS, BETTER FEED PROGRAMS, IN ORDER TO PRODUCE A BETTER EATING EXPERIENCE. On the “why” behind Seaboard’s Prairie Fresh USA Prime Pork program that selects high-quality pigs for superior cuts
And I’m not saying that’s a good or bad thing, either, but it’s going to require some change within the organization. You know, we have built an extremely strong leadership team here at Seaboard. I look back to my time when I started here, to today, there’s one person on that leadership team that was there on the team when Peter came in.
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