At the recent Trust In Beef event, Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster, Ron Hays, caught up with Senior Director of Sustainable Food Strategy at Tyson Foods Dr. Justin Ransom to talk about Tyson Foods’ efforts to create climate-smart beef.
This is the second part of Hays’s conversation with Dr. Ransom. Part one can be found here.
A little over a year ago, Tyson Foods rolled out Brazen Beef. Dr. Ransom says that product introduction taught them a lot. “When we first started, we really thought we were going to create a brand that would take off at a consumer level,” he said. “The reality is that consumers are interested, but they don’t know enough. They are wondering what am I going to cook tonight in the next five minutes, not the decision about making an environmental purchase.”
Dr. Ransom said that once Tyson Foods understood what drove consumer’s decisions, they began working with their distributors to help them meet their own goals to reduce emissions.
Tyson Food’s strategy is how to grow the embodiment and adoption of emission reducing practices across their value chain long term. “We have some ambitious goals,” Dr. Ransom said. “As a company, we are committed to reducing emissions by 30% by 2030. We have set science-based targets, and so have our distributors. If we have resilient farmers, we have a resilient business, and we can continue to grow. We want to sell more animal protein than anyone else in the world, and that comes from having a resilient supply chain.”
Dr. Ransom said that the company is still trying to figure out the correct way to incentivize these practices. “We see a time where these carbon markets are really going to develop,” he said. “Carbon offset markets are already out there. Farmers and ranchers are participating in them already in the row crop and grazing land spaces with oil and gas and transportation companies. It is becoming clear that in order for us to meet our targets, we have to work within our value chain.”
He said that sending a clear market signal will drive their strategy forward, but he is unsure of what the value to the supply chains will be.
“Cabon and climate are sensitive topics,” Dr. Ransom admitted. “Water is what I am most passionate about. We almost ran out of water in my north Texas hometown. Water is central to all of these conversations. We are thinking about this as land, air, water, and biodiversity, all mixed together. We need to create meaningful progress to create resilience in our business, in our value chain, so that we are going to be here for generations to come.”
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