Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumCostco's 100-Million-Chicken Nebraska Experiment Redefining Vertical Integration
Last edited Wed Dec 12, 2018, 11:03 AM - Edit history (1)
Can a single company reshape a landscape? Thats the question at play in Nebraska, where Costco, one of Americas most powerful companies, has the potential to impact residents, farmers, and the environment in complex and unprecedented ways. At the center of the move is the companys $4.99 rotisserie chicken. In 2014, Costco reported selling 78 million of these processed, four-pound birds a year. In order to guarantee a steady supply and maintain the price, Costco fixed its eye on Nebraska as the best place to start raising and processing its own supply of chickens, and break free of the monopoly held by companies such as Tyson and Pilgrims Pride, much like it did for sausage and hotdogs with its Kirkland plant in Tracy, California.
In June, the company broke ground on a giant new poultry processing facility in Fremont, about an hour wast of Omaha. The plant will process more than 2 million chickens a week, or more than 100 million birds a year, and provide as much as 43 percent of Costcos rotisserie chickens, as well as around one third of the raw birds it sells. The effort will also include a feed mill and over 500 giant barns in which to raise the broilers, the hens, and the pullets, or parents used to breed the broilers. Costco needs to recruit around 125 farmers to build and fund chicken barns within a 100-mile radius, and its contracting with Lincoln Premium Poultry (LPP), a company created for Costco in collaboration with Costco that sprang up in 2016 to take over the business of working with farmers and building the infrastructure.
As the biggest competitor with Whole Foods, selling $4 billion in organic foods, Costco has been wooing shoppers who care about the source of their food for years. (In fact, the company just announced that it would tighten its standards around antibiotic use in all the meat it supplies thanks in part to an ongoing effort by shareholder activists). So, to say theres a lot at stake with this new venture is an understatement.
While there has been resistance to both the plant and the barns on a county level, Nebraskas state government has been working with industry forces for several years to welcome just such a project to the state. The operation is being billed as one of the only ways for farmers in the area to hold on to their land for the next generation, but farmers advocates and other experts well-versed in the woes farmers face in the chicken industry say the reward may not be worth the price.
EDIT
https://civileats.com/2018/12/11/costcos-100-million-chickens-will-change-the-future-of-nebraska-farming/
democratisphere
(17,235 posts)and the like with poultry, dairy and other farm products. We have a government that turns a blind eye to this kind of sh't and does nothing to stop it while farmers and regional processing plants are being wiped out!
New Hampshire Man
(36 posts)Such inhumane treatment for such a noble creature.
democratisphere
(17,235 posts)It is a disgrace!
fierywoman
(7,683 posts)then that would have been interesting, but this is too same-old, same-old.
TeapotInATempest
(804 posts)I love Costco and I expect better of them than factory farming, with all the cruelty and environmental problems that go along with it.