The #1 thing that has worked for me is to plan meals for the week, if you know what meals you’re going to make you don’t buy things that won’t get used and will go bad.
Has hell frozen over? Not exactly even if major changes do happen across the industrial realm where some companies manage to understand what’s the future like. By saying this I’m not making a prediction that in near future we will stop eating meat all together; however, winds are blowing towards a direction that sees valid alternatives to traditionalism in food.
I’d like to point out first one issue that is often ignored when we debate meat and how it’s delivered on out tables. When speaking of animal farming we are all aware of the poor conditions some pastures are placed in order to maximize profitability. Endless quantities of meat constantly appear across thousand of supermarkets of all size in our country, creating a market behavior that does not directly reflect the consumer demand, but it’s the correlation between animal farmers and distributors (aka supermarkets) where the game is played.
We can asses that by analyzing the large amount of beef, pork, chicken, along with the relative byproducts, which are thrown into the garbage every week by grocery stores because it becomes unsold and close to expiry date. So, in essence blaming families as the main cause of animal conditions is not fair, but it’s the display of abundance distributors (aka supermarkets) perpetrate which drive the production demand high with the waste.
Tyson Foods is one of the largest North American dealer in terms of animal products from big restaurant chains to the frozen food section where many shop. The scale of manufacturing and client sale is very big and very lucrative, with a noticeable impact that comes with influential behavior since millions of people eat these products.
Beyond Meat, the vegan startup, has been producing valuable alternatives to burger patties that aesthetically look like any ground beef you could use to slap on your BBQ grill, and allegedly critics who have tasted it can confirm the similarity with the original animal product. Packages are already available across different grocery stores in the US and are planned to expand beyond the border. It’s essential to monitor if this deal continues and how this protein alternative can influence the markets and competitors.
This shift in behavior is nonetheless very interesting because it places a name like Tyson, often denounced for cruelty against its chicken and cows, changing the tune of their score and able to understand the trends happening out there not only on the internet but among communities.
Tyson knows that meat prices will continue to go up and its product consumption risks to go down; a major shift in dietary habits among the population translates in billions in losses. In the last twenty years we have seen all sorts of boycotting against fast-food meals and processed food, fields in which Tyson is fully responsible and well placed among.
In order to begin a portfolio diversification to develop with solid grounds, Tyson is making the smart move not to continue placing all its eggs in one basket. Investing in future trends proves to be a test against core industrial values that defy the traditionalism of certain markets. This also plays well on Tyson’s PR strategy so it can wield the ‘environmentally friendly’ card to the media, and who knows, perhaps a change in their marrow philosophy.
