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The processing perspective

By Laurie Gorton

March 2022

The processing
perspective

By covering the ‘noisy part’ of pet food production, the magazine offers readers insight not previously available.

Pet Food Processing

Pet foods of the 21st century are almost nothing like those of the 20th century. They differ in ingredients, packaging, processing technology and nearly every other production aspect. Pushed by pet owner demands, the industry has brought its standards up to those of foods made for human consumption.


How to satisfy those demands and achieve those standards is the challenge facing today’s pet food and treat processors. The ongoing assignment of one of the newest Sosland Publishing Co. magazines, Pet Food Processing (PFP), is to deliver insight that informs manufacturers’ and brands’ product development, processing and delivery. The four-year-old publication focuses on solid reporting in an industry with sustained growth for more than a decade now.


“Each Pet Food Processing issue contains a plant story, an equipment story, an ingredient story, a packaging story and a food safety story,” said Dave Crost, publisher of Pet Food Processing and MEAT+POULTRY. “That model has been successful for Sosland in the past and present; now, we are taking it to the future of the pet food industry.”


In other words, PFP describes what happens within the plant walls. According to Crost, this is an editorial approach not available from competitive sources. It makes PFP as unique as the nearly 600 new products that Mintel and Tree Top, Inc. report being introduced annually by the North American pet food industry.


According to the American Pet Products Association (APPA), total pet industry revenue reached an all-time high and totaled $103.6 billion in 2020, with pet food and treat sales leading the pack at $42 billion. This total represents a strong 6.7% increase from 2019 pet food and treat sales. From a retail perspective, across-the-board sales increases for every channel were recorded, with e-commerce coming out on top. In addition to the total retail sales growth, APPA reported pet specialty and independent retailers “experienced solid growth” despite disruptions caused by the pandemic.


“The pet food market has changed in very big ways,” Crost said. “When I was a kid, we didn’t put much thought into the nutrition we fed our pets. Today, pet owners are very attuned to the ingredients and health benefits of the food and treats they select for their pets. It amounts to a massive business.”


These dynamics occur because buyers of pet foods and supplies expect more out of the products they purchase for their pets. PFP’s March 2018 inaugural issue quoted the general manager of a major US pet food facility who said, “Pet owners want to buy the pet food which not only fits the exact nutritional needs of their pet but also caters to their personal ethics, beliefs and values.”


There are demands for convenience, traceability, sustainability, functional ingredients and clean labels. These factors dictate the content of PFP. The magazine’s management team adopted a production-centered format that had met with success for other Sosland publications.


“Our advertisers had been requesting that Sosland do something in the pet food field,” Crost said. “There was room in the market for this publication platform.”

In-plant and in-depth

Because production of pet food and pet treats crosses over animal feed and human food industries in multiple ways, articles about their technology and formulation occasionally ran in Sosland magazines, including Baking & Snack, MEAT+POULTRY, Milling & Baking News, Food Business News and other titles.


“Sosland Publishing has a long history of covering food manufacturing topics critical to producing safe, quality products,” said Jennifer Semple, editor, Pet Food Processing. “There is a fairly large overlap between human food processing’s ingredients, equipment, operations and food safety as practiced in the baking, meat, poultry and grain industries with operations in the pet food and treat industry.


“Bringing a pet food or treat product to market is extremely challenging,” Semple added. “Finding the suppliers and equipment manufacturers and experts to help processors through the challenges that their unique products create is key to success.”


Without Pet Food Processing, Semple observed, “Pet food processors must cover a lot of ground to find solutions that address their customers’ demands in this fractured and increasingly sophisticated market.”


PFP is editorial driven, as is every other Sosland publication. It strives to be a knowledge source for the formulation, production and safety of pet food.


The magazine’s mission is to provide in-depth information on pet food and treat processing news, technology and best practices, as well as to connect manufacturers of pet food and treats with the solution providers they need to produce safe, quality products. The magazine also reports the science driving innovation in the field, including university research.


Semple summarized, “We focus on being a resource to processors to help them keep tabs on how the industry, from a manufacturing perspective, is evolving so they can continue to meet their customers’ needs.”


She, Jordan Tyler, PFP’s digital editor, and Nicole Kerwin, PFP’s associate digital editor, strive to achieve a good balance between coverage of long-form, more in-depth topics in the quarterly print issues and daily digital’s more short-form sharing of the news impacting this industry.


All issues of PFP are available in digital format from the magazine’s website, www.petfoodprocessing.net.

Reader value verified

The importance of this editorial approach was borne out by the results of an internal reader survey taken by the magazine during 2021.


“We asked questions such as, ‘Should we increase frequency?’” Crost said. “The survey gave us the answer that our current quarterly schedule was the right balance.”
Other questions asked recipients to evaluate the editorial content as to its usefulness and relevance to the readers’ job responsibilities and about the publication’s digital offerings.


Since its launch in 2018, PFP has consistently outperformed its goals for digital engagement as well as for print subscriptions.


“Our survey respondents have given us high marks for our efforts so far,” Semple said. “Just comparing the first nine months of 2020 with the same timeframe in 2021, our web traffic is up more than 75%, and that has been a consistent pattern for us year-over-year since we launched.”


The newest change to the magazine will be the transition of its Resource Guide, a popular special issue published in October each year, to a comprehensive Buyer’s Guide.


“This gives our advertisers an additional opportunity to reach our readers,” Crost said.


For PFP, Sosland Publishing reported 7,550 average quarterly magazine circulation, 15,831 average digital alert recipients and 61,624 average monthly web sessions. All are 2021 numbers detailed in the 2022 PFP Media Guide. Crost shared circulation includes recipients in both the United States and Canada. Overseas requests for the magazine and its emails are handled on a case-by-case basis.

 

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The processing perspective

The processing perspective

By covering the ‘noisy part’ of pet food production, the magazine offers readers insight not previously available.

Global Vision: The World Grain Story

Global Vision: The World Grain Story

Magazine celebrates 40 years of covering the grain, flour milling and feed milling industries from an international perspective.

Educating the industry

Educating the industry

When Sosland Publishing added coverage of bakery technology in the late 1970s, it set the stage for today’s industry knowledge authority.

Supplier push

Sosland Publishing’s decision to introduce a pet food title fit its well-recognized and knowledgeable coverage of grain-based foods. In fact, the week before the company sent its first issue of PFP to the printer, a major food company, with deep roots in grain and flour milling, announced its acquisition of a large maker of premium pet foods. Today, the three largest pet food companies in the United States are all owned by major food processing companies.


For more than 10 years, the pet food industry has delivered growth that keeps investors’ tails wagging. APPA industry data indicates that the US pet food market has grown year over year since 2007 by at least 3.7% and as much as 10.7%. (PFP described the evolution of pet food from feed to food processing in its December 2021 issue.)


The magazine was launched in March 2018 as a quarterly publication. Its first issue carried a 96-page folio. The next year, it added a fifth issue, a Resource Guide, which documents the state of the industry, brand performance, processor profiles and other industry resources.


The idea of a Sosland magazine covering pet food processing first emerged in the 2010s. With the US economy still recovering from a steep recession, however, Sosland management hesitated to take on a new venture. As well, digital media were continuing to put print under considerable pressure.


Yet interest in advertising to this fast-growing field was evident.


“Several salespeople had accounts they believed would be interested in advertising in a pet food publication,” said L. Joshua Sosland, president, Sosland Publishing Co. “I sensed grassroots support for the idea across the sales staff.”


Crost described himself as a “chief cheerleader and convincer” for PFP. For some years, he frequently received requests from MEAT+POULTRY advertisers, especially the processing equipment vendors, for an advertising channel addressed specifically to pet food processors. So, too, had publishers of Baking & Snack.


“Our advertisers had seen an uptick in business from the pet food sector,” Crost noted. “At that time, these suppliers were not marketing directly to the pet food industry. The processes used by these manufacturers are similar to those in the meat and baking industries, and pet food processors told us they were reading magazines written for those industries to gain knowledge about technology, nutrition, food safety and packaging.”


Sosland Publishing Co. Chairman Charles Sosland described being approached by a number of the company’s publishers and top salespeople about a magazine covering pet food processing.


“We put the idea through the same due diligence we would have if we were acquiring a pet food magazine,” he said. “The concept developed traction and firm support from the top advertising prospects who were already advertisers in the Sosland universe. That really helped us move forward.”


Around this time, Crost and Charles Sosland hosted a dinner with the president of a major equipment vendor involved in this market. The executive explained that new business was being generated from pet food processors by word of mouth rather than any concentrated marketing efforts on the part of supplier companies.


“There were other conversations with vendors and with processors,” Crost said. “We asked, ‘If we build it, will you come?’ The answer was a very positive ‘yes.’”


With the corporate go-ahead, the next step was to assign sales managers and hire editors and columnists.


“We were fortunate to find Jennifer Semple to be our editor,” Crost said. “She has a background in business-to-business publishing, and Jordan Tyler, our digital associate editor, came on board with much-needed digital and social media skills.


“Once we got the editorial team together, things took off,” he continued. “Both editors have remarkable work ethics. From the beginning, Jennifer and Jordan reached out to our readers, advertisers and pet food and feed industry experts, including those at the university level. Jennifer has become well-recognized within the industry.”


The magazine is also served by a group of knowledgeable contributing editors and writers: Donna Berry, Jennifer Barnett Fox, Allison Gibeson, Keith Loria, Lynn Rogers and Richard Rowlands.

Change and stability

PFP demonstrated its solid business platform in mid-2020 when its publisher and chief salesman unexpectedly resigned. Four years earlier, the magazine debuted under the sales leadership of Steve Berne, publisher, and Adam Ungashick, lead sales representative. When both men left, Crost added the responsibilities of Pet Food Processing publisher to that of MEAT+POULTRY publisher. A number of senior Sosland publishers and salesmen, including Mike Gude, Bruce Webster, Troy Ashby, David DuPaul, Matt O’Shea, James Boddicker and Tom Huppe, stepped in to cover advertising assignments.


Crost explained that his role was to assure continuity.


“We did not experience any fall-off in our relationships with advertisers,” he said. “Everybody stepped up. We didn’t lose any business due to the personnel changes. It took a lot of work, true, but it turned out well. The market was sound. We were able to finish out 2020 in good shape, and we have had a successful 2021.”

Looking forward

The decision to give PFP a significant presence in both print and digital has been essential to its success. The magazine’s startup took place in a business-to-business publishing environment where print was losing favor to digital; however, Sosland has strong resources in both the print and digital channels.


“Pet Food Processing was our first launch in this era of social media and digital publishing,” Charles Sosland said. “The advertising mix is pretty close to 50/50 print/digital. PFP has embraced the opportunities that digital and social media offer, but we believe there is still a strong place for print going forward.


“Unlike some other publishers who have completely abandoned print, we believe the best way to deliver content is through all of the channels including print,” he continued. “But we have also embraced the digital and social media channels to serve a younger audience.”


Charles Sosland observed that the company has been actively engaged and investing in digital since the early 2000s. “Pet Food Processing is a little further along because its audience is a little further along, just as Food Business News is,” he said.


Semple explained, “We have to meet the reader where they choose to consume industry news, so we make an equally robust effort to deliver both print and digital content at a pace that fits well in the industry we serve. Having long-form content delivered quarterly allows us time to properly share that content in print and in our digital editions and through our website and social media channels to make sure that the information shared in our articles reaches the readers who need it.”


Offered through the magazine’s website, PFP digital products include email blasts, editorial videos, webinars and e-zines. Readers can sign up for e-newsletters: Operations Overview and Product Development Overview, both monthly reports, while Pet Food Processing Update is delivered semi-monthly, and the Weekly Wrap-Up is delivered every Saturday. The platform also offers custom publishing projects affiliated specifically with this magazine and the pet food and treat industry.
The company’s goal for PFP is steady long-term growth reflecting the diversity and continuous expansion in more sophisticated pet food products.


“We are confident that our growth will be equally divided between print and digital/social media, and that is what this market demands,” Charles Sosland observed. “We are also exploring the opportunity to serve the audience with a seminar devoted to pet food ingredient markets.”


Looking ahead, Semple said, “Like everything in life, it’s the people who matter most. Pet Food Processing’s greatest accomplishment, from my view, is the relationships we have built in the pet food and treat industry.”


She praised people’s generosity and openness in sharing what they know with others for the benefit of the industry. “And we’re honored to help facilitate some of that,” she added.


“Our star is rising,” Crost said. “Sosland brings grain, baking and the meat industry together. Pet Food Processing, which also brings grain, baking and the meat industry together, is a great opportunity to educate readers and serve the pet food industry.”

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Global Vision: The World Grain Story

By Laurie Gorton

March 2022

Global vision:
The World Grain Story

Magazine celebrates 40 years of covering the grain, flour milling and feed milling industries from an international perspective.

World Grain

Publishing for global audiences is no easy task. Many try, but few do well. World Grain’s 40 years covering the international grain, milling and feed industries shows what it takes to succeed.


“World Grain was Morton Sosland’s brainchild,” said Arvin Donley, editor, World Grain. “Morton had the foresight to see that global trade of agricultural commodities was going to expand in the coming decades, and developments in the grain industry in one country can have a profound impact on another.


“World Grain is a publication that highlights the interconnectivity of nations when it comes to the production and processing of grains and oilseeds.”


The magazine’s longtime publisher and now chairman of the company, Charles Sosland, said, “Our editorial quality today leads the market. World Grain has better staff writers and better qualified correspondents than any other publication in this field, bar none.”

The opportune time

The year 1982 provided a seminal moment to launch onto the world stage a publication that focused on the global grain trade. It had been a decade since the Great Russian Grain Deal roiled markets. Soon, however, the powerful agricultural hegemonies in the USSR were crumbling, China had started its shift to market economics, and the two big grain trading government monopolies in Canada and Australia were headed toward their twilight.


It was also the year of the China Encounter, a grain, milling and baking symposium jointly sponsored by Sosland Publishing Co. and the Bureau of Foreign Affairs in the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture. Ten years after US President Richard Nixon’s breakthrough visit to China, it took place to great success Sept. 9-12 in Beijing and attracted delegates from China and 12 different nations, including the United States.


Introducing the new magazine in its first issue the next month, Morton Sosland wrote to its readers, “World Grain will be a pivot for the flow of information needed to allow the world’s most vital industry to improve its productivity, efficiency and profit-making capability.”


Nearly 40 years later, Charles Sosland recalled his father’s vision: “World Grain came about because of what Morton started at Milling & Baking News in the 1970s, specifically his interest in and interactions with grain business owners and executives around the world. This also led to him breaking the news about the Russian Grain Deal, news that secured the place of Sosland Publishing among the world’s leading media.”


Neil Sosland, executive editor, markets, and Morton’s brother, added, “We had been thinking about this concept for a long time. The company and The Southwestern Miller were founded in 1922 to serve regional flour millers. Although that magazine was directed at the US, we always had some readers around the world.”


World Grain’s first issue appeared in October 1982. It assembled an 82-page folio, and its front cover featured the planet Earth as seen from space. Its first country focus — still among the magazine’s most popular series — examined the USSR. Headed by Morton Sosland as editor/publisher, the magazine recruited Tony Bush, a noted British business journalist, to be managing editor.


As a new magazine, it could call on authoritative reporters and writers, including Morton Sosland, Josh Sosland, Melvin Sjerven, Jay Sjerven and Roger Johnson. On the business side, it applied the talents of Mark Sabo, director of publishing; Rob McKnight, director, North America advertising sales; and Charles Sosland, director, international.


“In those early years, Tony Bush and Neil Sosland worked with the magazine’s editors, later including Susan Robinson, Stormy Wylie and Melissa Alexander,” Charles Sosland said. “Our current editor, Arvin Donley, came to us as an already well-respected journalist, knowledgeable about the grain and milling fields. My own career started on the milling and grain side, and later I became group publisher for our grain titles.”

Getting onboard

The idea was right, the market was there, and the timing was promising. But what about advertising support?


“After all, publishers also need to be able to monetize their concepts,” said Meyer Sosland, chief operating officer and executive editor, Sosland Publishing Co. He was previously an assistant editor of Milling & Baking News, soon moving to managing editor of World Grain. He is Charles’ son.


“We had talked to the world’s major grain suppliers and millers and learned that becoming the window on the world would be unique,” Charles Sosland said.
Getting the advertisers onboard was somewhat more difficult.


Neil Sosland observed, “With announcement of World Grain, we encountered a certain resistance from European advertisers to an American publication going to an international audience.”


Charles Sosland explained, “The three most powerful equipment suppliers in Europe were concerned that we would become a marketing tool for their American competitors. Only after I relocated to London with my family and had success with two Italian manufacturers did the other three big Europeans come around.”


Those “early in” advertisers were rewarded with prestigious positions opposite “Letter from the Editor” and on the front and back covers. These placements continued for many years.


To further enhance the international positioning of World Grain, publishers and editors attended and reported various national industry meetings as well as the big international shows. This also helped buttress the magazine’s relationships with international readers and advertisers.


“At the time we launched World Grain, there were Italian and UK publications, each attempting to go international,” Charles Sosland remembered. “The UK title was as old as our Southwestern Miller (now Milling & Baking News).”


Printing and mailing presented other hurdles to overcome. Almost as soon as it launched, World Grain circulation boasted subscribers in nearly 130 countries.
“We went through any number of printers,” Charles Sosland said. “We encountered problems not only with timely delivery of the magazine but also paper stock — lightweight stock is less costly to mail but not so durable.


“And mailing was a significant challenge. We finally worked out an arrangement with our printer in Singapore, Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. They found a company that would ship World Grain to local post offices around the world within a week of publication. Then, it was up to the local post office to get the magazine out to the readers. It can still take two weeks to two months to reach readers, but delivery has much improved.”

A world view, strongly voiced

World Grain’s media kit today describes the magazine as being “the international business magazine for grain, flour and feed.”


“Our magazine circulates monthly to an estimated 38,000 readers in nearly 160 countries,” Donley said. “The overall mission is basically the same as it was in 1982, which is to highlight industry trends, important events and anything else that is relevant to our global audience. What has changed is how we deliver this information to our readers with all the digital options we now have to disseminate our news product.”


World Grain readers are managers, owners and operators of major grain storage and handling concerns and processing facilities responsible for manufacturing flour and feed. The magazine’s issues are delivered to six continents: Africa, 10%; Asia, 15%; Oceania, 10%; Europe, 22%; North America, 25%; and South America, 18%.


“Morton recognized that the way grain is stored, handled and processed is done much the same way around the world,” Charles Sosland said. “Milling is milling. Flour is flour. Feed is feed. Grain merchandising is the same way. And most of the managers in this field speak and read English.”


Now it was up to the editors and correspondents to bring compelling content to readers around the globe.


“We had to get out and address our talents to reporting on grain on a worldwide basis,” Neil Sosland said. “World Grain was a definite extension of Milling & Baking News but also definitely a world publication.”


Fortunately, World Grain had more than one ace in the hole. Because grain and milling are lynchpin topics for Milling & Baking News, World Grain has always been able to count on strong participation within its editorial and feature pages by key Milling & Baking News editors.


Company president and editor of Milling & Baking News, L. Joshua Sosland, recalled writing many articles for World Grain in the days that he served as Milling & Baking News’ markets editor. The August 2021 earthquake in Haiti brought to mind a trip he took 10 years ago a few months after an even more devastating earthquake. He visited the country’s largest flour mill.


“It was a uniquely tragic story,” Josh Sosland said. “The managers described how work to clear the rubble was frequently interrupted to listen for possible survivors. The seaside dock that served the mill was the only operating port facility in the country for quite a long time.”


Over the years, several editors and publishers influenced the magazine’s performance. Morton Sosland was World Grain’s editor/publisher from 1982-93 and editor-in-chief from then until his death in 2019. Neil Sosland was editorial director for much of the magazine’s first decade (1984-93). Tony Bush was managing editor from 1982-84 and then moved full-time to Agribusiness Worldwide.


Melissa Cordonier Alexander, recruited from vice president of public affairs at the Kansas City Board of Trade, headed the magazine and later managed its annual directories (13 years, 1983-2011), exerting significant influence. Others who held the role of editor or managing editor included Susan Robinson (10 years, 1988-98), Stormy Wylie (eight years, 1994-2002), Suzi Fraser Dominy (four years, 2002-06) and Meyer Sosland (12 years, 2004-16). Eric Schroeder, Milling & Baking News’ managing editor since 2004, added similar duties for World Grain in 2016. The longest serving, however, is World Grain’s current editor, Arvin Donley (17 years, starting 2005), nearly matched by Susan Reidy (15 years, starting 2007) as senior editor and, previously, editor of Biofuels Business.


The individuals who served World Grain in sales and publishing roles have similar long tenure. Mark Cornwell (20 years, 1994-2014), a World Grain sales rep, succeeded Charles Sosland as publisher in 1999. When he left, another veteran Sosland sales rep, Dan Flavin (23 years, starting 1999), took over as publisher.


World Grain was launched as a bimonthly, but three years later in 1985, it went to nine regular issues a year and an international buyer’s guide as its 10th. In 1985, it was the first in its field of coverage to compile and publish an international milling directory — 4,000 mills in 80 countries.


Regular issues rose to a full 12 monthly editions annually in 1994. Addition of Grain & Milling Annual and Spanish, Chinese and, most recently, Russian language editions plus regional and international buyer’s guides brings the magazine to 18 separate issues in 2021.


It also has added coverage of feed.


“There was always a little bit of feed industry coverage mixed in, but it wasn’t until about eight years ago that we made a concerted effort to significantly increase our coverage of the global feed industry,” Donley explained.


Flavin explained further, “Consolidation within the industry has given us the opportunity to expand our coverage to include feed-related articles and readers.”
Circulation also was expanded to add producers of grain-based biofuels.


“Basically, we’re interested in any type of grain processing,” Donley said. “I anticipate that specialty milling is going to become a bigger part of our coverage as we move forward because more companies are making it a bigger part of their operation.”

Content that fits the market

“Above all, World Grain strives for diversity in its content,” Donley said. “By that I mean we try to have important news from every continent in each issue, as well as meaningful content on each of the three industries we cover. We also strive to include a nice mix of market news, profiles on companies and individuals, new construction projects, operations features, editorial commentary and news from industry suppliers.


“It’s quite a balancing act, but one we take very seriously.”


As intended from the first, World Grain is distinctly international in editorial scope.


“World Grain was meant to be the international version of Milling & Baking News, but more operational in focus,” Charles Sosland said.


World Grain’s editorial menu reflects today’s broad trends and places them in context of its readers in the grain, milling and feed sectors.


From the first, each issue carried one or more features about significant milling and grain operations, often profiling the newest and largest such facilities.


“The industries we cover are dominated by companies that have been around for decades and, in some cases, more than a century,” Donley said. “But those companies are always erecting new facilities, and we are always eager to feature a new grain terminal, flour mill or feed mill. These new plants are of great interest to our readers because they often feature the newest equipment the industry has to offer.”


Interviews provide commentary from industry leaders. These individuals range from the EU’s Minister of Agriculture, to the US Secretary of Agriculture, to the heads of the former USSR’s Exportkhleb, Ceroil Foods in China and the Canadian Wheat Board. The chief executives of major millers and grain-based associations around the world also have had their say in the pages of the magazine.


The country focus articles, included in each issue from the beginning, profile government policies concerning agriculture and detail the agribusiness conditions in countries on every continent except Antarctica. All told, the series has taken readers around the world several times.


“There are several dozen countries that qualify as major players in the industries we cover, and we try to feature them every few years on a rotating basis,” Donley said. “Others, such as China, Brazil, the US and Canada, are updated more frequently because their ag industries are so large and dynamic.


“We do get occasional input from our advertisers who inform us about countries seeing the most growth in terms of added grain storage and processing capacity. It has always been one of our most popular features, and we are careful during our selection process to make sure all parts of the globe are represented in a given year.”


The magazine regularly covers new technologies, a focus established during Neil Sosland’s editorial management. Its coverage of pneumatic conveying, color sorters and double-roll roller mills gave many international readers their first glimpse of these state-of-the-art systems. The potential for “lights out” milling was reported in 1992.


Ethanol received front cover attention from World Grain. In 1988, the magazine reported a Swedish pilot project for making fuel ethanol from cereal grains. During ethanol’s boom years, 2003-08, World Grain took readers to visit many ethanol production facilities, described its manufacturing technology and cautioned about diversion of grains from food and feed into fuel. Although ethanol has waned considerably, it’s still an active subject for the magazine.

Today’s hot topics

The interests of World Grain’s audience in the grain storage, handling and trade arenas, as well as those active in flour milling and feed manufacturing, share common themes.


“Product safety has become hugely important,” Donley observed. “Personal safety, whether it’s preventing grain dust explosions or grain entrapment or keeping employees out of harm’s way in processing plants, is also an issue that drives our coverage, as is sustainability.


“These industries are also dealing with increasing amounts of government regulation, which can significantly impact these tight-margin businesses.”
One emerging trend is blockchain technology and the impact that will have on everything from grain trading to how flour and feed mills operate.


“New technology is always at the forefront of World Grain’s coverage because it can revolutionize how grain is stored, processed and transported,” Donley said.


Climate change has been a significant editorial subject for World Grain since the 1990s. Articles detail its implications for agriculture generally and cereal grains specifically. The topic is frequently the featured subject of the magazine’s front covers.


“As the weather gets hotter and more extreme, it is having a dramatic impact on crop production,” Donley said. “In recent years, many countries, most notably Australia, have seen crop output significantly reduced due to drought. The changing climate is moving more grain production north in places such as Canada and Siberia. They are now growing soybeans, which would have been an unthinkable development just a few years ago.


“While production of those crops expand into those areas, the concern is that places like Australia and the Southern Plains in the US, which already had a warm, dry climate prior to the recent extreme climatic developments, will have difficulty growing crops in the near future. With the global population projected to increase to nearly 10 billion by 2050, the world simply cannot afford to have grain production curtailed because of climate issues.”

Speaking in Tongues

When Morton Sosland introduced World Grain’s inaugural issue, he called attention to plans to offer some editorial content in Spanish. That year, the magazine provided several technical articles and news items in Spanish translation. This practice continued for several years, culminating in an all-Spanish language edition appearing in 1999 and every year since. A Chinese-language edition was added in 1985 and, most recently, a Russian edition.


“The foreign language editions of World Grain have continued because our advertisers believe, as we do, that this is a strong enough market to support its own language publication,” Charles Sosland explained. “It gives us a springboard to other foreign language publications in those countries and others.”


The magazine’s relationships with correspondents in these regions continues to be essential. For example, a grain science professor in China who possessed an entrepreneurial character was the key to the Chinese edition, Charles Sosland said. And there were also several well-established equipment manufacturers active in China who offered advertising support.


Although English is the common technical language for most of the world, World Grain recognized that some regions did not share the same fluency.


“The size of those markets justified advertisers’ requests for ads to be provided in those languages,” Charles Sosland said. “I’ve been asked about publishing similar editions for the Middle East, but we don’t yet have opportunities in that region, nor is there a common language we could use.”

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Educating the industry

By Laurie Gorton

March 2022

Educating
the industry

When Sosland Publishing added coverage of bakery technology in the late 1970s, it set the stage for today’s industry knowledge authority.

Baking & Snack

Milling & Baking News struck the spark that ignited today’s Baking & Snack magazine when it reported technical papers given at the 1977 International Bread Congress. The coverage ran in various 1978 issues. Although the magazine had reported meetings of the American Society of Bakery Engineers in the past, the Bread Congress accounts proved seminal.


Feedback quickly validated the potential for more examination of such topics. Less than a year later, Baking Equipment Quarterly debuted as a supplement in Milling & Baking News March 13, 1979.


“We got great response from readers and advertisers alike,” said Mike Gude, publisher of Baking & Snack, Milling & Baking News and Food Business News. “Today, the magazine and its digital products are the industry’s knowledge authority. That’s what the magazine’s mission has been from the start.


“Baking & Snack is the indispensable voice of the grain-based foods industry,” he added.

Mission-directed editorial

With a focus on processing and in-plant operations, Baking & Snack covers the development, production, packaging, distribution and operations management of grain-based foods manufacturing. Editorial topics include ingredients, production and packaging technologies, company/plant features, industry news and market trends. It has a circulation of 11,700 print and digital subscribers, audited by BPA, and 75,344 average monthly unique visitors to the bakingbusiness.com website.


The folio of the first issue was 32 pages; today, issues can reach 180 to 220 pages.
In 2021, the magazine reaffirmed its commitment to readers with a new editorial team led by Editor Charlotte Atchley.


“We go to our readers for information to guide and inform our coverage,” she said. “We did this to keep our magazine and digital products relevant. The suppliers to the baking industry are another major resource for our work.”


Ms. Atchley continued, “The magazine’s mission today is what we have striven to be all along: to be the authoritative voice, to support industry growth and to provide readers with ways to improve their businesses, all through publication of actionable information.”

Startup leadership, expertise

Baking Equipment Quarterly began life under the editorial supervision of Gordon Davidson, managing editor of Milling & Baking News, and Mark Sabo, director of publications for Sosland Publishing Co. Milling & Baking News associate editors — John Beal, Laurie Larson and Mary Wickersham — wrote and edited articles. Bob Kalmus supervised advertising sales as Baking Equipment Quarterly general manager, and Mr. Gude served as an advertising representative.


In late 1982, Sosland Publishing acquired Bakers Digest from E.J. Pyler and Siebel Publishing. The company decided to boost Baking Equipment Quarterly to every other month, alternating with Bakers Digest. It was renamed Baking Equipment and became a freestanding magazine a few years later.


In early 1983, Mr. Sabo brought in Laurie Gorton from a competing publisher to edit both bimonthlies. That year, editorial preparation of Baking Directory & Buyer’s Guide shifted to the Baking Equipment staff. That year as well, Josh Sosland joined his family’s company and served for several months as production editor of Baking Equipment before moving to the markets desk at Milling & Baking News; he is now president of the company and editor of its flagship, Milling & Baking News.


In 1983, too, Tom Spooner, a distinguished engineer who had just retired from the presidency of a major bakery equipment company, joined Baking Equipment as a contributing editor, adding his considerable authority to its editorial offerings. Over the years, many well-recognized industry experts graced the magazine pages with their bylines: Donna Berry, Theresa Cogswell, Jeff Dearduff, Jim Kline, Rebeca Lopez-Garcia, Leland Moss, Clyde Stauffer and Richard Stier.


Publishing responsibilities transferred to Mr. Gude a few years later, and the magazine became a monthly.


During the early 1990s, a number of leading baking companies purchased or launched snack food operations. To reflect this reader trend, the magazine changed its identity to Baking & Snack Systems, later simplifying this to Baking & Snack. About this time, Mr. Gude was promoted to publishing director for Baking & Snack. Paul Lattan, who had been hired in 1990 as a sales representative, became Baking & Snack publisher in 1997. He brought in Steve Berne as editor in 1999 and assigned Ms. Gorton new duties as executive editor. In 2010, Mr. Berne joined the Sosland sales staff as associate publisher of Baking & Snack, and Dan Malovany was hired as the magazine’s editor from a competing publication.

Renewing management

As Baking & Snack moved into the 21st century, Joanie Spencer was promoted to editor/managing editor in 2015 from managing editor of bake, a sister Sosland publication. Mr. Sabo retired in 2015 and Ms. Gorton in 2017. A year earlier, Ms. Spencer became editor, and Mr. Malovany ascended to editorial director.


All this changed in mid-2020 with the departure of Ms. Spencer, Mr. Lattan and Mr. Berne. Mr. Malovany was named interim editor to manage the transition for the remainder of 2020, while Mr. Gude was tapped for a “second term” as publisher. With the start of 2021, Ms. Atchley was promoted from senior editor to editor, and Mr. Malovany took the title of executive editor.


Asked to reflect on his return as publisher, Mr. Gude demurred.


“Actually, I never left,” he said. “While my role with Baking & Snack during the past 20 years has been mostly in the background, I continued to serve as publishing director and then publisher emeritus. I’ve been able to follow Baking & Snack’s progress and growth.


“It has become a multi-dimensional and fully integrated print-and-digital publishing platform, deeply committed to serving reader and advertiser alike,” he said.


Ms. Atchley, too, brings years of perspective to her post as editor of Baking & Snack. She joined the magazine 10 years earlier, progressing from assistant editor to associate editor and, most recently, senior editor.


“With my new responsibilities, I am looking forward to working more closely with the whole Sosland team, the other editors and other magazines,” she said, noting projects already underway to collaborate with Mr. Sosland; Eric Schroeder, managing editor of Milling & Baking News; and Keith Nunes, editor of Food Business News. “They are helping us with insight and mentoring,” she observed. We are also working to break down silos and make coverage more robust.”

Legacy of innovation
Bakers Digest, founded as Siebel Technical Review in 1926, was part of that era’s technological revolution that transformed commercial baking from an industry based on craftsmanship to one in which science and technology became increasingly important, according to E.J. Pyler, longtime editor, publisher and owner of Siebel Publishing Co.


Bakers Digest served bakery engineers and production managers by reporting baking science and technology as it developed. It described major scientific findings and innovative technologies in articles written by the scientists and inventors themselves. It often published these accounts some years ahead of commercial implementation.


Many production superintendents regarded Bakers Digest as the industry “bible,” and it became the main source for “Baking Science and Technology,” the textbook used to educate most commercial wholesale bakers and university cereal and food science students. The two-volume book is now available in its fourth edition from Sosland Publishing Co.


Although Mr. Pyler had retired by 1982 when Sosland Publishing acquired Bakers Digest, his son, Richard E. Pyler, PhD, a research chemist at a major brewing company, served as the publication’s technical editor.


The new owner continued the magazine’s every-other-month schedule for several years. Baking Equipment, however, had taken the lead as the baker’s source about equipment technologies. In the early 1990s, it brought in ingredients as an editorial subject, and the role of Bakers Digest diminished further.


The company reduced Bakers Digest’s frequency to an annual special issue, Reference Source filled with statistical data about the use of ingredients. This material was later folded into Baking & Snack’s May issue and supplemented by profiles of R&D departments at leading baking companies.

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As the industry shifts

In its first year, Baking Equipment described itself as “the equipment and engineering magazine for baked foods manufacturers: wholesale bread and cake bakers, cookie and cracker manufacturers, frozen dough producers, snack manufacturers, pasta manufacturers, foodservice bakers.” But as the industry changed, so did the magazine.


“At first, we accepted only machinery advertising, none for ingredients,” Mr. Gude said. Within a few years, however, ingredient companies started asking for space. “I recall the sales manager of a leading ingredient company telling me, ‘Mike, our customers don’t care so much about seeing piles of white powders as they do about the shiny stuff, the machines. That’s what they like. That’s what they want to see. And we want to be there when they do.’ And, yes, he got his ads into Baking & Snack.”


Much can change in 40 years, and much of it is brought about by the periodic International Baking Industry Expositions (IBIE). By participating, the editors of Baking & Snack and Sosland Publishing Co. have learned much, gained industry insight and increased their involvement as the official media provider of this show, the most important Western Hemisphere gathering for wholesale and retail bakers.

Covering major trends

As its primary assignment, Baking & Snack reports about state-of-the-art baking technology, product formulating and the bakeries that put these to work.


Chief among industry trends is the continuing replacement of manual tasks by automated controls and technician labor. Advances in controls described in the magazine pages evolved from mainframes to factory-floor-hardened PCs, programmable controllers, networks and intelligent components and from push buttons to touch screens. Through all of it, Baking & Snack was there. The disciplines of statistical process controls, enterprise resource planning and supply chain management tie plants together to optimize corporate goals and are described frequently in the magazine.


Simultaneously, a rising tide of automation is lifting productivity for all segments of the industry. Bread and buns were the first to replace nuts-and-bolts mechanization with digitally controlled equipment. This automation trend has now altered the production of bagels, cakes, croissants, pastries, pizzas, tortillas and snacks — all reported in the pages of Baking & Snack.


Constant flux characterizes the product trends. Consumer interest in health and wellness, well underway by the early 1980s, is today’s most significant influence on new food product development. The magazine offers a steady diet of articles about this new reality. It has published numerous features about how to make baked goods and snacks that are low fat, high fiber, reduced sodium, high protein, plant based, non-GMO, vegan, organic and made with ancient and whole grains — and covered a veritable tsunami of new ingredients.


“In the past few years, product development has become front and center,” Mr. Gude said. “So, the magazine has broadened its scope in coverage and circulation. We now reach readers in the functions of R&D, new product and process development, packaging and marketing, and the management of these functions, including the c-suite. All these areas affect the equipment and vice versa.”


A related trend, also closely reported in the magazine’s pages, is the burgeoning desire among consumers to avoid chemically derived ingredients. Although popular demand pushes hard for natural ingredients, such changes are not easy. Articles about replacement of dough conditioners, especially bromate, and the use of enzymes have helped bakers address this trend.


The baking industry, like the food industry as a whole, has been profoundly reshaped by government regulations. The Clean Air Act of 1970, for example, forced changes in ovens to cut ethanol emissions, and alterations to rules governing food labels restrict on-package statements of health claims and allergen content. Voluntary standards now address the presence or absence of GMO ingredients. Food safety reform, enacted in 2011 to safeguard nearly every aspect of food plant operations, has been extensively examined in the magazine.


Another industry factor is consolidation.


“This trend has been with us for a long time,” Ms. Atchley said, “but there are still opportunities for outreach to new players.”


Indeed, many of the food processing industry’s newest businesses are in the snack food category. She cited Sosland’s Food Entrepreneur and Food Business News as sources for many editorial leads.

Data-directed editorial

“When I became editor, Dan Malovany and I had extensive conversations about the magazine’s mission but also sought ways to home in on knowledge that readers can use,” Ms. Atchley explained.


The editors and staff writers work closely with Cypress Research and BEMA Intel to base their work on relevant trends in industry data. The magazine’s annual Capital Spending Report is also shapes editorial.


“Website traffic, such as the number of clicks our stories get, is equally helpful,” Ms. Atchley said. “We closely monitor reader attention to get insight into what they want. And we are excited about what we learn from podcast traffic.


“What this means,” she continued, “is that when drawing up our editorial calendar, we are not making assumptions; instead, we are looking at real data from the readers.”


Baking & Snack remains committed to useful coverage of technology and formulating.


“But we now take these subjects to a higher level,” Ms. Atchley said, “to look at issues of processing efficiency, reduction of downtime, improvement in manpower usage and of market impact. That approach is applicable across all sectors.


“The subjects keep changing, which keeps them interesting to readers and ourselves,” she said.

Print, digital synergy

Just as Sosland Publishing was the first trade publisher to adopt computerized editing and makeup technologies, it was also a forerunner in digital products and continues to lead in this space.


“Baking & Snack and Sosland Publishing are the leaders in digital media across the entire food processing industry,” Mr. Gude said. “And there is great synergy between our digital and print efforts. It continues to expand our reach and impact on the industry, and readers can access us in the ways they want, be it digital, print or podcast.”


Baking & Snack’s first podcast, Since Sliced Bread, was launched at the beginning of 2020, and offers a new way to tell the industry’s stories.


“The podcast gives bakers and snack food makers a voice,” Ms. Atchley said. “Articles can have many sources, and you can only give them so many words in the written piece. But with the podcasts, you can dig deeper. Each guest gets 30 minutes to tell their unique stories.”


“Charlotte’s podcast, Since Sliced Bread, is extraordinarily insightful.” Mr. Gude observed.


Other digital products serve additional purposes.


“The Editor’s Pick videos have been very rewarding,” Ms. Atchley observed. “They not only promote the next issue, but they also put a face to the magazine. And we’ve done more video interviews with bakers to add a personal touch to bakery features.”


These digital offerings represent a shift in the past year to make contacts between editor and reader more personal.


“I believe this reflects a shift in society in general to make media connections more personal,” Ms. Atchley explained. “The new tools now being used — Zoom and Microsoft Teams, for example — better convey the passion that our staff has for our stories.”


Emblematic of the editorial team’s commitment to offer readers valuable and practical content, a new editorial feature, Pro Tips, was introduced in 2021.


“We recruited columnists to produce short 200-word pieces for our website,” Ms. Atchley explained.


These are prepared by contributors Rowdy Brixey and Richard Charpentier, plus Harrison Helmick, a graduate student at Purdue University, and several instructors from the AIB International.


“The function of each Pro Tip is to help us connect the readers to the magazine by addressing the challenges they face in formulating, producing and marketing,” Ms. Atchley said. “They serve a different purpose, but one still related to the mission of Baking & Snack. They will help us educate and dive deeper into technical topics.”

Sosland Publishing leads the way to IBIE

The International Baking Industry Exposition (IBIE) continues to play a key role in the development of Baking & Snack as the industry’s leading voice.


Not only do the publication’s editors participate in the company’s activities as Official Media Provider to IBIE, but they also take what they learn into the pages of the magazine.


IBIE 2001 first granted Sosland this status.


“We saw an opportunity to deepen our commitment to IBIE, and we ran with it. We were able to step into a great opportunity,” said Mike Gude, publisher of Baking & Snack, Milling & Baking News and Food Business News. “We bring our all-in attitude, subject expertise and editorial resources to promote and cover this event. It’s a unique relationship in all of trade publishing.”


Baking & Snack celebrated its 25th year in business at IBIE 2004.


Before each every-three-years show and during it, Sosland editors tell the baking industry what’s next and what to look for at IBIE.


All of Sosland’s baking-related titles participate. Baking & Snack is assigned the lead role in managing and producing the Sosland editorial projects, including the Show Daily, which is produced on-site at the show in Las Vegas.


“This event offers a good moment to step back and look at the big picture,” said Charlotte Atchley, editor of Baking & Snack. “It helps us check the pulse of the industry and our coverage of it.


“We hope that IBIE 2022 — and iba 2023 — give us back the opportunity to again meet face-to-face with bakers and key industry contacts.”


IBIE will be held in Las Vegas, Sept. 17-22.

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(Part 2) 100 years of international food aid: Continuing the fight against hunger

By Jay Sjerven

December 28, 2021

100 years of international food aid:
Continuing the fight against hunger

The United States was engaged in what was at the time and for many years to come the world’s largest humanitarian mission ever, sending US food to Russia to save millions from starvation.

Milling & Baking News

World Food Programme

The need for US international food aid assistance is increasing, perhaps to historic proportions. The number of those living in extreme hunger has been mounting rapidly as the COVID-19 pandemic extends its grip on populations and economies. Even before the pandemic, millions of people suffered from hunger and malnutrition because of conflict, drought and natural disasters. Support in the United States for lending a helping hand to those abroad in need of food has been longstanding and broad based. In Washington, champions of international food aid have come from both sides of the aisle as the mission has been in accord with both the generosity of the American people and the national interest.


The United States government has depended greatly on private voluntary organizations to deliver in-kind food assistance abroad, and since 1961 has had a great partner in the United Nations World Food Programme, which has become the world’s largest humanitarian organization.


For this second of two installments on international food assistance, Milling & Baking News spoke with legendary champions of US international food aid and the executive director of the World Food Programme, and received a briefing from the US Agency for International Development on current US food aid policy.

Glickman

Food aid champions come from ‘both sides of the aisle’

Historically, the US commitment to providing food assistance to the hungry of other nations has enjoyed support from Republican and Democratic leaders alike. Its champions have come from both sides of the aisle, and its future hinges on continued strong bipartisan support.


The late Senator Robert Dole of Kansas, former Senate Majority Leader and Republican candidate for President of the United States, was a towering champion for US international food assistance, especially in-kind food assistance, during his 35 years in the House of Representatives and the US Senate and for the rest of his life.


“I’ve always believed we have an obligation to help others in need — in this case, to help others who struggle to put food on the table,” Mr. Dole told Milling & Baking News in an October 2021 interview. “By feeding the hungry around the world, we make a real difference in the lives of others. Sharing our bounty has not only been good for US farmers, it’s also been excellent foreign policy.  I believe there’s a link between a country’s food security and its stability as a nation.”


Asked why international food assistance enjoyed broad bipartisan support in Congress, Mr. Dole said, “I’d like to think that people from both parties equally recognize the humanitarian aspect of international food aid.  When you think about it, it really isn’t a political issue, and it shouldn’t be a political issue.  It’s a basic need of any human – to be fed.”


Mr. Dole left enduring contributions to the success and structure of US international food and agriculture assistance.


He and Senator George McGovern were responsible for the establishment of the renowned McGovern-Dole US International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program. Under this initiative, school attendance in select developing countries has been encouraged by ensuring children receive at least one nutritious meal at school each day. One standout achievement attributed to the program has been poor families increasingly sending their girl children as well as their boys to school. The program also has included innovative features such as rewarding students for school attendance by sending them home occasionally with a highly prized tin of cooking oil for use by their families.


“George and I created the program when we both met with President Clinton to discuss the issue,” Mr. Dole said. “It was clearly important to George and to me, and President Clinton also recognized the need. George and I both came from farming states, so we shared a mutual respect for farmers and a recognition that they should be instrumental in the ongoing fight against worldwide hunger. As for the future, I am confident that the momentum of the program will continue for years to come.”


Most of the food served in the school feeding program comprises US in-kind donations. Largely on the success and strength of this program, Mr. Dole and Mr. McGovern received the World Food Prize in 2008.


Mr. Dole emphasized the importance of donating US-grown food in its assistance to other nations.


“I’ve always believed that in-kind food donations are of paramount importance,” Mr. Dole said. “There is something special about sending our home-grown food to nations where there is need.  It benefits the American farmer, and it benefits our relations with other nations.”


Asked what the future may hold for US international food assistance, Mr. Dole said, “We cannot feed the entire world – there is simply not enough food available here to feed all who are hungry worldwide — but we can help needy nations throughout the world increase yields and feed themselves.  By sharing not only our food but also our science and expertise, we help foreign nations feed themselves and further close the gap between those who are fed and those who remain hungry.”


Sharing US farming expertise and technology was especially important to Mr. Dole, who in 1966 drafted legislation that called for a “Bread and Butter Corps,” which later became the Farmer-to-Farmer program, which continues to this day.


Sitting in on the White House meeting when Mr. Dole and Mr. McGovern made their pitch for an international school feeding program to President Clinton was then Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, who oversaw the US Department of Agriculture’s food assistance operations including commodity purchases for donation abroad. Mr. Glickman said it was no mistake that Mr. Dole and Mr. McGovern jointly promoted the initiative as there has been a bipartisan foundation to all US international food aid programs.


Mr. Glickman told Milling & Baking News he was confident food assistance will remain an essential component in US foreign policy.


“Congress and administrations of both parties have supported food and nutrition assistance for many years, both bilaterally and through the UN World Food Programme,” Mr. Glickman said.


“The United States is the largest donor to the WFP, and I expect that support to continue,” Mr. Glickman said.


“The humanitarian challenges to food security, affected by climate change, weather variability and political conflicts, are likely to continue, and thus I would expect US food assistance will continue to be a high priority as part of our US foreign assistance programs,” Mr. Glickman asserted. “I should note that in these days of a highly toxic political environment in Washington, global food and nutrition assistance continues to enjoy strong bipartisan support.”


Mr. Glickman currently is a senior counselor and chair of the International Advisory Board at APCO Worldwide and is a longtime board member and now a lead director of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME Group). He is a distinguished fellow in Global Food and Agriculture at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs and an adjunct professor at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy in Boston. Mr. Glickman long has been engaged in promoting bipartisanship in the US Congress, retiring as vice president of the Aspen Institute and executive director of its Congressional Program in early 2021 after 10 years. Before serving as secretary of agriculture from March 1995 until January 2001, he represented the 4th Congressional District of Kansas in the US House of Representatives for 18 years.


“Traditionally our food aid programs provided direct commodity assistance to needy people,” Mr. Glickman said. “But while I expect that commodity assistance to continue, I believe that more assistance will be in the form of cash assistance, where the recipients can either purchase the food locally, or source it locally.  Local conditions in those countries need this added flexibility, and this is a trend I expect to continue, so there will be a combination of cash and commodity assistance in the future. The key is flexibility, as there is no one size fits all in how food assistance is distributed. The US government has worked closely with the NGO (non-governmental organization) community, the WFP, and where possible, foreign governments in distribution efforts, particularly in high conflict regions.”


Mr. Glickman added, “I also expect there will be much more attention to issues of nutrition security, diet, health and disease, which have not been the top priority of our commodity assistance programs in the past. I can’t overstate the importance of nutrition and health, in addition to supplying US-grown commodities. This is a major domestic and global trend, and we need to be doing much more research into the types of commodities and food products that help promote good health and prevent disease.”

Senators Bob Dole, left, and George McGovern at US Senate hearings on the School Feeding Program in 2000.

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US-WFP partnership critical as world hunger is on the rise again

The need for international food assistance has grown dramatically in recent years and particularly since the disruption to global economies wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, David Beasley, executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme, told Milling & Baking News. Mr. Beasley is an American political leader, educator,and former governor of the State of South Carolina. He was appointed executive director of the WFP in 2017.


The WFP since its establishment in 1961 has been the most important partner to the United States in providing international food assistance, both in-kind and market based. In fiscal year 2020, 73% of US in-kind food assistance shipped abroad was distributed by the WFP, according to the US Agency for International Development.


“WFP fed 115 million people last year, more than in any other year in our history, and there are 42 million people in 43 countries at the ‘emergency’ phase of food insecurity in 2021 — just one step away from famine,” Mr. Beasley said.


“In this COVID period alone, we have seen the population of acutely hungry people double in the countries where we work, from about 135 million to 270 million,” Mr. Beasley said. “The chief causes are: man-made conflict (of the sort we see in places like Yemen and Syria); more frequent extreme weather like droughts and flooding; and the severe economic fallout from COVID, which has left so many people without money to purchase food. WFP has strong programs in each of these areas, one reason we received the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for our work. For instance, WFP is helping 19 countries to forecast extreme climate events and trigger preventive action before vulnerable families are hit by disasters. By providing cash transfers ahead of floods, droughts and storms, we support people in harm’s way to evacuate assets and livestock, reinforce homesteads, and buy food, seed and emergency items so they are better prepared to deal with a food crisis.”


Commenting on the WFP-US partnership, Mr. Beasley explained, “The United States is currently the largest donor to WFP — and has been for our entire 60-year history. Last year, the United States alone contributed $3.7 billion of WFP’s $8.5 billion budget. That’s a strong vote of confidence by the United States, one that crosses political lines — and one that I don’t take for granted. We operate in close partnership with US aid authorities everywhere we work. Through various agencies like USAID and the USDA, the United States supports virtually every aspect of WFP’s work — our emergency operations, our livelihoods programs, our school meals work (WFP fed 15 million schoolchildren last year) and our management of the UN Humanitarian Air Service, which enables aid workers to reach remote areas not served by commercial airlines.”


Mr. Beasley was asked how methods of delivery of food aid have changed in recent years, and how WFP determines which method to use in different circumstances.


“WFP empowers its country teams to determine which specific mechanisms will be most effective in the local context,” Mr. Beasley said. “Different tools are better suited to different circumstances, based on factors ranging from availability of food in local markets to reliability of mobile phone services. As digital technology has opened up whole new ways of working, WFP’s methods of delivery have become more sophisticated, enabling us to reach hungry people more quickly and more efficiently. Even five years ago, who would have guessed WFP would be using drones to capture images of storm-ravaged areas unreachable by vehicles, so we can establish where the greatest needs are immediately after a disaster? Or send electronic vouchers by cell phone so families can buy food? We constantly embrace cutting-edge technologies in our drive to feed hungry people.”


Mr. Beasely replied “Absolutely!,” when asked whether US in-kind food donations will remain an important tool in the WFP toolbox in coming years.


“Although WFP increasingly provides direct assistance with cash (we have become the largest cash provider in the humanitarian community, supplying $2.1 billion of cash aid in 67 countries in 2020), in-kind donations from the United States and other countries will always remain an important part of the resources at our disposal,” he said. “We use different forms of assistance in different settings, based on local conditions, and in some places, using in-kind donations makes greater sense.”


Mr. Beasley said providing international food aid likely will become even more challenging in coming years.


“On the one hand, global needs are increasing due to the huge damage done by COVID, placing even greater pressure on WFP and on our partners to use precious resources as wisely as possible,” Mr. Beasley said. “On the other hand, the budgets of donor countries face their own pressures due to growing national needs from the pandemic and its economic fallout, so some countries are reducing aid. That is forcing WFP to reduce rations — something we never want to do. But I would urge our donors not to go down this path. If we act now, we can avoid the global hunger crisis spinning out of control, but if we wait for it to hit full force before we act, the costs will be immense. It’s all hands on deck. We need to act today.” 

David Beasley with Rohingya refugees.

USAID: Robust food assistance across the globe

US international food assistance programs in the future will include continued donations of US-grown food alongside more recently employed methods of providing assistance to those in urgent need, including purchasing food commodities grown or raised in regions closer to a hunger outbreak, and even distributing cash or vouchers to refugees or other displaced families so they may purchase food readily available in local markets but unaffordable to them, a spokesperson for the US Agency for International Development told Milling & Baking News.


“The United States is the world’s leading donor of humanitarian assistance, providing more than $10.5 billion in fiscal year 2020,” the spokesperson said. “More than two-thirds of this funding— more than $7 billion—came from the US Agency for International Development, including nearly $4.8 billion in market-based and in-kind food assistance. The United States is committed to continuing to provide robust food assistance around the world.”


The spokesperson pointed out that in 2020, USAID’s Office of Food for Peace (USAID/FFP) merged with the agency’s Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance. The resulting body, the USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, “aims to elevate US humanitarian assistance to better respond to the magnitude, complexity, and protracted nature of today’s emergencies.”


The spokesperson said Congress appropriates funding for both the PL 480 Title II account, which provides for in-kind donations of US-grown food, and the International Disaster Assistance (IDA) account, which primarily provides for market-based food assistance.


“These two streams of funding allow USAID to draw both from in-kind US- grown commodities as well as the full suite of market-based food assistance modalities depending on the specific context on the ground,” the spokesperson said.


Asked what US international food assistance may look like in the future, the spokesperson said, “USAID is focused on providing the right assistance at the right time. Just as US food assistance has continued to evolve over our (USAID) 60-plus year history, it will continue to adapt based on the crises at hand. In-kind food assistance is, and will continue to be, a critical tool where markets are not functioning and food is scarce. We will also continue to draw from a full suite of market-based modalities, including local, regional, and international procurement, food vouchers, and cash transfers for food, where the situation on the ground makes those tools more efficient and effective ways to reach people in need.”


The spokesperson said USAID considers a variety of factors when determining the most effective means of providing food assistance, including the specific needs on the ground, what access it has to affected populations, market conditions in the affected area, and costs of transporting food assistance.


“In most cases, flexibility and complementarity are the keys to effectiveness,” the spokesperson said. “A combination of humanitarian response options is often the most effective way to meet people’s emergency needs. For example, Yemen receives significant in-kind food assistance because the country imports roughly 90% of its food supply, but an effective humanitarian response in Yemen requires not only in-kind food assistance but also market-based assistance through food vouchers.”


The product mix in US international food assistance has changed over the past several years with a greater emphasis on nutrition and not simply on providing essential calories.


“USAID provides food that best meets nutritional needs and local dietary preferences,” the spokesperson said. “These commodities may vary year to year based on where we are programming. Over the past decade, USAID has also been working to improve the nutritional value of our food products by using nutrient-fortified foods, such as Super Cereal Plus and Corn Soy Blend Plus, as well as ready-to-use foods (such as nutrient-fortified peanut butter pastes) that help address hunger while preventing and treating malnutrition.


“For example, in South Sudan, USAID is providing Ready-to-Use-Therapeutic Food (RUTF) through the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to treat the most severely malnourished children, as well as fortified blended flours and vegetable oil and Ready-to-Use-Supplementary Food (RUSF) through additional partners to prevent malnourished children from deteriorating to a more severe state.”


There are currently 25 food commodities and products procured for use through Title II programs.


In order to ensure US-grown and processed foods reach aid recipients as expeditiously as possible, US farm and food industries for the past several years have encouraged pre-positioning of US products in warehouses closer to areas likely to experience food scarcity.


“Pre-positioning food makes USAID more agile and flexible to respond to crises as they emerge,” the USAID spokesperson said. “USAID stockpiles food in key locations around the world to significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to reach people in need. By getting a head-start on the lengthy procurement and delivery process, pre-positioned food arrives on average 76 days earlier than food procured normally. At any given moment, USAID has up to 50,000 tonnes of in-kind food aid stored in four warehouses around the world, ready to respond to crises as they arise. The composition and levels of the inventories are tailored based on anticipated needs and forecast demand.


“In fiscal year 2020, more than 170,000 tonnes of in-kind commodities were distributed to people in need from USAID’s prepositioned stocks,” the spokesperson continued. “Commonly pre-positioned food items include yellow split peas, vegetable oil, Corm-Soy Blend Plus, lentils, and cereals.


“USAID also works with the World Food Programme to maintain its network of warehouses throughout the world,” the spokesman added. “By extending the network, USAID and WFP can reach even more people in need of emergency food assistance.”

USAID
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(Part 1) 100 years of international food aid: Generosity in the national interest

By Jay Sjerven

December 14, 2021

100 years of international food aid:
generosity in the national interest

The United States was engaged in what was at the time and for many years to come the world’s largest humanitarian mission ever, sending US food to Russia to save millions from starvation.

Milling & Baking News

“America to the starving people of Russia.” An American Relief Administration poster distributed in Russia during the 1921-22 US famine relief mission to that country.

When The Southwestern Miller, the predecessor to Milling & Baking News, was launched as a weekly news magazine for the flour milling and grain industries in March 1922, the United States was engaged in what was at the time and for many years to come the world’s largest humanitarian mission ever, sending US food to Russa to save millions from starvation. It was the first but far from the last such US humanitarian food aid mission chronicled in the pages of Sosland Publishing Co.’s premier weekly news publication.


Drought and famine broke out in the Volga and Ural regions of the Soviet Union in 1921 and raged across broad expanses of the countryside through 1922. An estimated 5 million people perished from starvation. The Bolshevik government, having just prevailed in a devastating civil war, did not have the wherewithal to contain the catastrophe. In fact, during the civil war, the government dispatched Red Guard units from hungry cities to forcibly requisition farmers’ grain stores, even seed grain needed to sow the next year’s crops.


The Bolsheviks, having recently turned back the military intervention of US, British and other allied armed forces that sought to bolster anti-revolutionary armies arrayed against the fledgling Soviet government, were loath to accept outside assistance. But conditions were dire and threatening to become even worse, and the Bolsheviks relented.


The American Relief Administration, formed to distribute US food assistance to Europe during and in the immediate aftermath of World War I, led what became an international famine relief effort in Russia. The ARA was headed by Herbert Hoover, who directed President Woodrow Wilson’s Food Administration during World War I and became Secretary of Commerce in 1921 in the Harding Administration. Mr. Hoover later was elected the 31st president of the United States.


Initially, the ARA envisioned feeding 1 million Russian schoolchildren a day in famine areas, but it soon was feeding 10.5 million people a day at more than 21,000 local kitchens. It was a herculean enterprise with young American volunteers, most former doughboys, dispatched to Russia to organize food procurement, shipping, transportation and distribution, and even administer railroads in famine areas. In support of the effort, Congress appropriated $20 million to be used for the purchase and transport of US corn.


The Southwestern Miller, in its second issue, reported the US Grain Corp. (a food purchasing arm of the US government) was tendering for 5,000 tons of corn grits for shipment to Russia. This tender was one of several for corn grits, which was the mainstay of the US relief mission.


US wheat also was shipped to the Soviet Union during the famine but mostly for seeding.


The US-led effort in turning back the Russian famine of 1921-22 illustrated the principal underlying features of subsequent US international food assistance initiatives.


First and foremost, it highlighted the generosity of the American people in sharing their bounty with those who temporarily and through no fault of their own were unable to feed themselves.


Second, there was a measure of self-interest. In most years, American farmers produce more grain and other foodstuffs than can be consumed domestically. Commercial exports always have provided vital outlets for US agricultural products. But in years of particular bounty or narrowed export outlets, surpluses may weigh heavily on the market and depress farm prices. In the months before the Soviet famine-relief effort, corn had been selling in the United States as low as 11¢ a bu. Once purchases for Soviet famine relief began, the corn price advanced quickly to 60¢ a bu as the surplus was drawn down.


International food assistance in many years has provided an outlet for US surpluses that otherwise may have gone to waste or at the least would have weighed heavily on farm prices and incomes. This was especially true in years when the federal government impounded huge stocks of grain and other farm products it acquired through farm income support programs.


While US farm and trade policies have been reformed and have become much more market oriented in the past several years, and the US government no longer is a large, let alone the largest holder of US grain stocks, US purchases of grain and other foodstuffs on the open market for donation abroad still benefit the US farm and food communities while sustaining the lives of those in crisis abroad.


And third, there was in the Sovietfamine relief effort, as there has been in all subsequent such initiatives, strategic considerations. Mr. Hoover was stridently anti-communist. But he believed that extending assistance directly to the people of the Soviet Union would provide not only an example of American generosity but also of American efficiency and know-how, in other words, the superiority of the American system. He never lost hope that the Soviet experiment would fail and that the Bolsheviks would be removed from power.


As Mr. Hoover might have said, the United States wants and needs friends. It wants stable and increasingly prosperous trading partners. Often extending a helping hand when assistance is needed over time may make for a more prosperous and secure world in which the United States may thrive.

WWII: Lend-Lease, and Feed

The Second World War in Europe broke out in September 1939 with the Nazi German invasion of Poland. The United Kingdom and France, having failed in efforts to prevent the German seizures of Austria and Czechoslovakia and concerned the Nazi’s expansionism knew no bounds, had warned Germany should it invade Poland, they would declare war. Germany invaded, and what tenuous peace existed across much of Europe since the end of the First World War was finished.


President Franklin D. Roosevelt, concerned the United States would not be able to keep war at bay forever, began to beef up US defenses in 1940 and sought ways to extend a helping hand to the United Kingdom, which stood alone against the Nazis after the surrender of France and other European nations.


The United States greatly expanded aid to the United Kingdom through the Lend-Lease Program, which was established by an act of Congress in March 1941. Congress initially appropriated $7 billion, with more to come later, to assist the United Kingdom and its allies in procuring the wherewithal to resist aggression. Allies to receive Lend-Lease assistance soon were to include the Soviet Union, which in June 1941 was invaded by Nazi Germany. The Lend-Lease program expanded to include assistance to yet more allied nations after the United States entered the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.


While most Lend-Lease aid was in weapons and equipment, President Roosevelt on April 16, 1941, authorized Secretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard to begin shipping food aid under the program as well. The Southwestern Miller in its April 22, 1941, issue carried an article headlined “American Food May Win World War II.” The article reported on a radio broadcast by Secretary Wickard who asserted, “Food raised by American farmers may yet win the war and decide the peace, and in such a way that this thing cannot happen again … England needs American food. This food will help her hold out against the Nazi. On the other hand, the lack of food is likely to defeat Germany. In the struggle between freedom and the goosestep, food may decide the issue.”


Initial food shipments to the United Kingdom under Lend-Lease included evaporated milk, cheese and eggs. But the same April 22 issue of The Southwestern Miller reported flour purchases for shipment to the United Kingdom were expected imminently.


Between April 16 and Dec. 25, 1941, arrivals of US Lend-Lease foodstuffs in the United Kingdom passed the 1-million-ton mark. A steady flow of American food and even vitamins to the United Kingdom continued through the end of the war in 1945.


Secretary of State Edward Stettinius in his wartime book titled “Lend-Lease, Weapon for Victory,” noted the important role Lend-Lease played in delivering US food to help feed Soviet Red Army soldiers fighting the Germans. When the Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, was overrun by the Nazis, the Soviet Union lost a large part of its supply of hogs, potatoes and grain. In December 1941, officials of the US Department of Agriculture began to meet weekly with Soviet Union representatives on their country’s food needs, which were considerable and increasingly urgent.


“In the first part of 1942, shipments were limited almost entirely to wheat, flour and sugar,” Mr. Stettinius said. “Looking ahead, however, the Soviet Government Purchasing Commission had requested for future large amounts of canned meats and of fats and oils also. The Russians were short on food in general, but especially short on the proteins and fats necessary to maintain their fighting strength. I think it can be said that without the food sent from the United States, it would have been necessary either to reduce considerably the Red Army’s rations or to cut the ration of war workers well below the danger line in order to maintain the Red Army at top fighting strength.”

Food to Secure the Peace

45 and over the Japanese Empire in September 1945 ended the fighting but not the misery and hunger in the United Kingdom and in those countries in Europe and Asia that were the war’s killing fields.


Immediate post-war food assistance to Europe was provided by the United States through the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency. The UNRRA was primarily a US initiative but also drew on donations from other food-surplus countries. During its brief tenure, the UNRRA, which was discontinued in 1947, provided more than 25 million tonnes of food assistance, more than three times the post-World War I relief.


Such large-scale relief was essential as crop production in Europe was slow to recover from the ravages of the war years, and the bitterly cold winter of 1946-47 severely damaged winter crops planted for harvest in 1947.


With another harsh European winter in prospect, President Harry S. Truman in a radio and television address to the nation on Oct. 5, 1947, said, “The situation in Europe is grim and forbidding as winter approaches. Despite the vigorous efforts of the European people, their crops have suffered so badly from droughts, floods and cold that the tragedy of hunger is a stark reality. The nations of Western Europe will soon be scraping the bottom of the food barrel. They cannot get through the coming winter and spring without help — generous help — from the United States and from other countries that have food to spare.


“Their most urgent need is food. If the peace should be lost because we failed to share our food with hungry people, there would be no more tragic example in all history of a peace needlessly lost.”


The president’s remarks were reported in full in the Oct. 7, 1947, issue of The Southwestern Miller. Under a headline reading “Bread Saving; Meatless, Eggless, Days,” the editors outlined the president’s plan for food conservation in the United States to help meet emergency needs in Europe.


“The president called for meatless Tuesdays and asked that no poultry or eggs be served on Thursdays along with recommendations to farmers to reduce feeding of grain to livestock,” the editors said. “In the case of bread, the president asked every consumer to ‘save a slice every day’ and also asked that public eating places serve bread and also butter only on request.”


With Europe still on the ropes, the European Recovery Program, known as the Marshall Plan, was approved by Congress in the spring of 1948. The Marshall Plan had as a principal goal stimulating the recovery of European economies and thereby curbing the influence of the Soviet Union and national communist parties. Food played a significant role in Marshall Plan assistance. About $3 billion of the $13 billion extended by the Marshall Plan was used by European nations to purchase US food, animal feed and fertilizer.

The Southwestern Miller

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PL 480, Food for Peace

s the need for emergency food aid to Europe began to abate in the early 1950s and military demand waned with the end of the Korean War, surplus stocks of wheat and other farm commodities in the United States began to grow rapidly. Alarmed lawmakers sought means to dispose of stocks being accumulated by the government through its farm support programs and to develop new foreign markets for US farm products.


On June 30, 1954, both the Senate and the House of Representatives passed the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act, PL 480, which created a permanent structure for US international food assistance and the Food for Peace programs that continue to this day.


As reported in The Southwestern Miller in its July 6 issue of that year, the legislation provided $700 million for the sale of private or government-held surpluses to countries in need, which were allowed to pay for the commodities with their own currencies, not dollars. Also, ATDAA permitted the president to use up to $300 million in Commodity Credit Corp. (US Department of Agriculture) surpluses for gifts to “friendly peoples in meeting famine or other urgent relief requirements” over three years.


President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed ATDAA into law on July 10, 1954.
There initially were three primary titles in PL 480 through which food assistance was delivered abroad. Title I provided for concessional sales of food, for many years mostly wheat and flour, to foreign governments to be paid for in their own currencies over time and on terms more favorable than those offered commercial buyers. While after 1971, payment for Title I food was required in dollars, recipient governments still could pay the United States over several years, in instances up to 40 years, at low interest rates.


Title II provided for primarily humanitarian donations of US-sourced food commodities to arrest or avert famine. Title III provided for bartering US food for materials of value to the United States. Title III barter transactions ended in 1973.


For the first several years of PL 480, shipments of wheat sold on concessional terms under Title I dwarfed those of emergency wheat donations under Title II. In 1964, the tenth year of PL 480, 439 million bus of wheat were shipped under Title I, while wheat donations under Title II totaled around 19 million bus. Total PL 480 wheat shipments accounted for more than half of all US wheat exported in that year.


Food for Peace programs evolved over the years. Under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, there was less emphasis on surplus disposal and more on addressing famine and the nutritional needs of recipients of US food aid. US foreign aid itself became an increasingly important instrument in a structured foreign policy. The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 established the US Agency for International Development, which would become the principal agency administering Food for Peace Title II donations in collaboration with the USDA.


Reforms in US and world trade and farm policies during recent decades have seen food donations under Title II become the principal means by which the United States provides in-kind food aid to other nations while concessional sales under Title I, the bane of other food-exporting nations that alleged it displaced their commercial sales, declined into insignificance.


Until recent years, US international food aid was provided exclusively as in-kind aid with commodities sourced in the United States and shipped to recipient countries. But in the last 10 years, US food aid increasingly has included market-based assistance, such as food purchased outside the United States and closer to a hunger outbreak, known as local and regional purchases (LRP), cash transfers and vouchers. This change was initiated under the George W. Bush administration and accelerated under President Barack Obama.


In 2010, USAID, drawing on authorities from the Foreign Assistance Act, began to provide market-based food aid in disaster situations under what was named the Emergency Food Security Program (EFSP). Congress permanently authorized the EFSP in the Global Food Security Act of 2016, and the Global Food Security Reauthorization Act of 2017 provided funding for the program through fiscal year 2023.


US use of market-based food assistance in recent years has expanded to the point where EFSP now is the largest among US international food aid programs in terms of total congressional outlays and food assistance provided.


The recent evolution of US international food aid programs toward increased use of market-based modalities initially was opposed but then largely accepted by US non-governmental organizations that have been partners in distributing PL 480 Title II food since the inception of Food for Peace.


Farm, food and grain organizations have lined up on both sides of the in-kind versus market-based modalities controversy. Resistance to the recent changes has been tempered in large part because of the diminishing portion of total US agricultural production and exports accounted for by today’s food aid programs. It was estimated that foreign food aid recently has accounted for less than 1% of total US agricultural output, although for some crops such as pulse crops and sorghum, foreign food aid looms larger in importance. In the case of wheat, US Wheat Associates estimated in recent years wheat purchased under PL 480 Title II for donation abroad has averaged about 800,000 tonnes a year, or about 3% of all US wheat exports. That compared with up to 15 million tonnes of wheat purchased for international food aid in the mid-1960s.


US flour exports under PL 480 in recent years have been miniscule compared with volumes shipped in the first decades of Food for Peace programs. The North American Millers’ Association indicated most milled foods provided as food aid today include fortified and blended grain-based products such as corn-soy blends, some of which have been developed by NAMA members in cooperation with USAID and the World Food Programme to meet the nutritional needs of aid recipients.


NAMA and other agriculture and food industry organizations also have been champions of pre-positioning US food products at strategically vital locations near areas where hunger outbreaks have been chronic to ensure US in-kind food aid reaches those in need more quickly and efficiently than when it is shipped directly from the United States.

World Food Programme and US AID

A look to the future

The direction of US international food aid will be decided in the next several months as Congress prepares to draft a new farm bill and decides whether or at what level to reauthorize the Emergency Food Security Program beyond fiscal year 2023.


The USDA and USAID are partners in providing US international in-kind food aid.


The USDA’s Commodity Credit Corp. procures all US agricultural commodities to be donated abroad, including under programs administered by the USDA itself, such as the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program.
USAID administers the distribution of commodities procured by the CCC for PL 480 Title II donations in cooperation with non-governmental and international organizations.


The statutory authority for the Food for Peace Act and its programs is contained in the farm bill (the current farm bill being the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, which expires in fiscal year 2023). Farm bills must be renewed with modifications at intervals, usually every five years, by Congress. The House and Senate agriculture committees have jurisdiction over the farm bill and the Food for Peace programs. The agriculture subcommittees of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees propose the funding for the programs.


The House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations Committees have jurisdiction over programs and agencies with statutory authority derived from the Foreign Assistance Act, including USAID and the Emergency Food Security Program. The State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs subcommittees of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees propose funding for these programs.
With world hunger on the advance once again because of the pandemic, much is a stake as Congress weighs the future of US international food aid.

World Food Programme and US AID
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Humane touch

By Joel Crews

December 2021

Humane
touch

Processors continue to elevate the importance of animal welfare.

Meat+Poultry

Heritage Image Partnership Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

The relationship between man and beast has biblical roots and has long since garnered the attention of ancient philosophers and theologians.


“It matters not how man behaves to animals because God has subjected all things to man’s power,” Thomas Aquinas wrote.


The perception that animals, especially livestock, were merely a tool to facilitate the needs of people, including performing work and as serving as a source of food, was the subject of noteworthy philosophers.


According to the writings of Aristotle, “Plants exist for the sake of animals and brute beasts for the sake of man.”


Temple Grandin, PhD, a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and an expert on animal welfare and livestock handling designs, sees the relationship between humans and animals differently. The 74-year-old icon recently recalled a trip to Israel years ago when she conducted an informal survey of Hebrew-speaking residents about what they thought man having dominion over fish, birds, cattle and wild animals of the earth meant.


“Just about every one of them said it meant stewardship. That’s a very different meaning,” she said.


“That’s in the Bible,” Grandin said. “There was some concern about animals even back then.” Grandin, an educator, scientist, engineer, author of dozens of books and the subject of an Emmy-award winning movie, has dedicated her long career to improving the lives of animals.

Origins across the pond

The United Kingdom was ahead of the United States with regard to legislation related to humane treatment of livestock in the early 1930s as evidenced by the passage of the Slaughter of Animals Act of 1933, which required mechanical stunning of cows and electrical stunning of pigs.


Meanwhile, in the United States, the growth of the meat industry in the early to middle 20th century was facilitated by the establishment of stockyards in Chicago, Kansas City and New York and the use of feedlots across the country. The expansion of a transportation infrastructure brought exponential growth in livestock production as transportation advances made moving live animals from farms to feedlots to processing plants much more prevalent. The development of refrigerated transportation via railways and on trucks also served to distribute more meat to more states. As demand, production and consumption grew, so too did the awareness of how animals in the food supply chain were treated.


About 25 years after England’s formation of the Humane Slaughter Association (HSA) in 1911, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the federal Humane Methods of Slaughter Act into law. Prior to the 1958 Humane Slaughter Act, there were no laws regulating humane slaughter practices. The initial law focused on ensuring that proper methods were used to render cattle insensible before shackling, hoisting, casting or cutting. The law applied only to companies selling meat to the US government and specifically addressed the stunning of cattle, pigs, sheep and other mammals, and did not address the stunning of birds. It also did not apply to religious slaughter, such as halal or Kosher.


The Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 1978 was passed as a follow-up to the earlier law, addressing cattle handling practices during the slaughtering process. According to the USDA, the intention of the 1978 act was to prevent needless animal suffering, improve meat quality, decrease financial losses, and ensure safe working conditions. Compliance with the Act was ensured by USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service veterinarians overseeing slaughter at beef packing plants in addition to FSIS inspectors on the kill floor. The veterinarian enforced humane slaughter methods throughout the plant by observing methods of slaughter, ensuring corrective action was taken, and reporting inhumane treatment of cattle.

Temple Grandin garnered credibility in the industry after she designed the cattle handling systems for all of Cargill’s plants in North America.

Poultry’s time

The Federal Poultry Inspection Service was established in 1926, which initially provided inspection of live birds at New York area train stations and poultry vending locations.


Vertical integration in the poultry industry, especially during the 1960s, served as an opportunity for producers to utilize new biological and pharmaceutical technologies that would advance broiler welfare for years to come. By the mid ‘70s, the poultry industry had evolved as researchers discovered the important role of nutrition, implemented disease eradication programs and took advantage of genetic-based improvements in the breeding process.


More recently, the National Chicken Council (NCC) developed the NCC Animal Welfare Guidelines and Audit Checklist in 1999, which has been adopted by chicken producers and processors to ensure the humane treatment of chickens. The guidelines are species specific, focusing on broilers and broiler breeders and address every phase of a chicken’s life to make science-based recommendations for the proper treatment of broiler chickens.


“The USDA has requirements regarding humane slaughter under the federal Poultry Products Inspection Act, and the slaughter process is monitored on a continuous basis by FSIS inspectors,” said Ashley Peterson, PhD, senior vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs with the NCC. “Companies may receive a non-compliance report relating to animal welfare and must take corrective action when they are not in compliance with FSIS directives.”


Peterson said the evolution in technology in chicken production has advanced broiler welfare, including housing ventilation systems, automated and sensor-based control of feed, water and temperature controls in production facilities as well as vaccines and nutrition regimens that advance the health of more broilers. She said consumers today want to know food animals are treated well by food companies they hold responsible for animal welfare.

Perception matters

The Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 1978 signaled a significant tide shift in the industry and a heightened awareness among consumers about the treatment of animals. The perception of animals’ role in society among humans has slowly evolved and the concept of animal rights and animal welfare began to be reconsidered as research about animals’ ability to feel pain, sense fear and possibly possess souls became more widely held.


One of the world’s most-respected experts on animal welfare and animal behavior, Grandin said the first step in the slow process of improving animal handling in the industry was accepting that livestock have senses similar to humans. As a person with autism, Grandin said she and the animals she has dedicated her life to share the traits of being visual thinkers and hyper-sensitive to sensory-based stimulants.
“One of the first things that happened a long time ago was recognizing that animals can feel pain,” Grandin said, pointing out that for many decades, neuroscientists confirmed that animals experience fear.


Grandin was one of the first researchers published in the Journal of Animal Science addressing fear as a psychological stressor experienced by livestock during handling and transport. That groundbreaking research, titled, “Assessment of Stress During Handling and Transport,” was published in 1997.


“I got the ‘fear’ word and some of that neuroscience brain research into the animal science literature, in the veterinary literature, because for a long time you couldn’t say that,” Grandin said.


“It is completely recognized today that animals have fear; that animals have emotional systems.”


Despite the passage of the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 1978, animal welfare practices in the meat and poultry industry were sorely lacking. Grandin said even after ‘78, what was considered normal was nothing short of atrocious.


“The ‘80s were about the worst,” she said, and she realized there were opportunities for her to be a change agent. Another emerging force pushing consumers and food companies to change at that time were animal activist groups, including the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).


By the time the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 1978 was passed, Grandin had earned her master’s degree from Arizona State University, where she was a frequent visitor at plants there, including the Swift plant in Tolleson, Ariz., as well as a Cudahy pork plant near Phoenix. She recalled each company proudly posted signs in their lobbies promoting the use of humane slaughtering practices, realizing the importance of animal welfare well ahead of many companies. In the late 1980s, Grandin moved to Illinois to pursue a doctorate at the University of Illinois.


Her early work focused on improving chute systems. In the 1980s and early ‘90s, Grandin developed the industry’s first-ever center-track restrainer system, based on a concept from researchers at the University of Connecticut. Recognizing it as a more humane option to V-restrainers, Grandin adapted the university’s plywood prototype and modified it for use in slaughter plant environments. Establishing the correct use of the center-track restrainers in the early 1990s proved to be challenging, however, as some plant operators didn’t always use them correctly.


It was frustrating, Grandin said, to realize that some company’s operators assumed throwing money at a problem would automatically fix it.


“There were a lot of these systems out there, but a lot of people just tore them up and wrecked them. They were not managing. Too often people would just buy equipment and think it was automatic management,” she said, which was simply not true.


The same false mindset applied in adapting stunning technology in slaughter plants.


In one of the first slaughter plants she worked in, the Swift plant in Arizona, Grandin worked with engineers to eliminate two large stun boxes that held two cattle at a time, which often triggered stress in the animals. She replaced it with a V-restrainer and a ramp system (which Grandin referred to as the “stairway to heaven”). The center-track restrainer ultimately replaced the V-restrainer, but equipment alone isn’t a solution.


“You’ve got to maintain it,” she said, “and realize equipment evolves. The V-restrainer was a big improvement in high-speed plants over stun boxes. And the center-track restrainer was another improvement.”

Credibility counts

It was also during this period that Grandin was beginning to design curved chute systems to more effectively drive cattle and pigs. And her expertise in animal behavior and engineering was being recognized by prominent industry processors.


“In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, I laid out handling systems for all the Cargill beef plants in North America,” she said. In the same period, Grandin worked with the American Meat Institute’s (AMI) Janet Riley (who was then the vice president of public affairs) to write the “Recommended Animal Handling Guidelines for Meat Packers,” which was published in 1991 and was the industry’s first voluntary animal welfare guidelines for meat packers. In 1997, Grandin went on to write “Good Management Practices for Animal Handling and Stunning,” which included an objective scoring system based on the guidelines to be used as a tool to measure and manage animal welfare practices at meat plants. The system measured stunning efficacy, insensibility, vocalization, prod use and falling down.


Jerry Karczewski, who was working as an operations manager at Taylor Packing in the 1990s recalled reading an article written by Grandin and published in MEAT+POULTRY about the new auditing system using an objective scoring system. He was intrigued by the guidelines and scoring approach and saw it as an opportunity to address a problem with cattle stunning that was discovered at his plant by a European customer. At the time he didn’t know who Grandin was and with a background in fabrication and focusing on improving the quality of production, he saw this new system as a way to solve a problem in the slaughtering area of the plant, which was not his specialty. But he was intrigued by the audit process and implemented it at his plant. After a few months, prodding, vocalization and slips and falls decreased.


“It improved our scores and it improved our productivity because calm animals and good stunning helped us be more efficient,” Karczewski said. Little did he know, he was responsible for making Taylor the first company to implement Grandin’s system, much to the joy of AMI officials and Grandin. A few months later, Karczewski was part of a panel discussion on animal welfare audits at the first-ever AMI Animal Care and Handling Conference in 1997. Minutes after sharing his experience with the audience, Grandin approached Karczewski wanting to hear more details about the success of the program at Taylor. Grandin and Riley then encouraged and supported him to assume the role of the first chairman of the association’s newly formed Animal Welfare Committee, a position that took his career in a new direction that he said was highlighted by working closely with Grandin for many years.

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McChange

Due in part to pressure from animal activist groups, McDonald’s Corp. hired Grandin in 1999 to train its team of food safety auditors on animal welfare practices using the objective scoring system that was becoming adopted by a growing number of plants. Once training was completed, any plant supplying the burger chain was required to meet or exceed the auditing criteria. Once the auditing system was implemented throughout the McDonald’s system in North America, plants were able to identify and fix problems throughout the McDonald’s network of suppliers.


“When McDonald’s required suppliers to use the audit,” Karczewski said, “that was a world-changing event for the meat industry.”


“In six months, I saw more change than I’ve seen in my whole entire career,” Grandin said.


It didn’t take long for competitors, Wendy’s and Burger King to get on board, following the leader by auditing plants and investing resources in animal welfare.
The buy-in from McDonald’s in 1999 signaled a huge shift for any meat company supplying customers in the QSR segment and beyond.


Erika Voogd was one of the first McDonald’s humane handling officers. Voogd recalled how the plants she was working with when the new animal handling audits began were focused on efficiency and maximizing the number of head processed with little regard for the welfare of the animals.


“This meant that if every cow or pig needed to be electrically prodded to get them to enter a stun box or restrainer, it was common practice,” said Voogd, who has operated Voogd Consulting Inc. in West Chicago since 2003. “Nowadays, it is uncommon for the electric prod to need to be used more than 5% to 10% of the time and many plants have eliminated use almost completely.”


When Grandin’s system was introduced, electric prods could only be used to move pigs or cattle 25% of the time. Efforts to reduce balking, slipping and falling became a priority for suppliers of meat products to the world’s largest QSR chains.


“The plants needed to think smarter and eliminate the slippery floors and distractions that kept animals from moving forward,” Voogd said.


When it came to stunning cattle prior to the new animal welfare auditing system, it was not uncommon for multiple shots to be administered due to an agitated, stressed animal or a poorly maintained captive-bolt stunner.


“This was a typical process; double stunning cattle routinely,” Voogd said.


However, the new guidelines only allowed for a maximum of 5% of double shots when they were introduced in 1999 and then lowered to four out of 100 as of 2018.


“Plants needed to ensure that the stun tool was in excellent condition and strong enough to stun the animal, even as cattle and pigs became heavier and larger over the years. Also, the handling operators needed to develop calm handling methods to assure that the animals were not stressed when presented to the slaughter area for stunning,” Voogd said.


Today it is rare for Voogd to record a double shot during a one-hour audit at the plants she works with throughout North America. She said, at most, it is an occasional occurrence.


“The plants that maintain their equipment, handle their animals calmly and have strong enough stun tools just don’t experience too many issues,” she said.

Erika Voogd (left) was one of McDonald’s first animal welfare officers.

Tools of the trade

Voogd added that technology has played a role in improving animal welfare. Implementing third-party remote video auditing of animal handling practices has been adopted by most of the major meat and poultry companies in the industry.


Stunning technology has also made great strides through the years, including captive-bolt stunners.


“They are stronger in caliber and force and more ergonomically acceptable for the operator. This has made stunning easier and less likely to fail,” Voogd said.


Chuck Bildstein agreed. The humane stunning and equipment specialist with Riverside, Mo.-based Bunzl Processor Division is an authority on the most effective tools to render livestock insensible. He said captive-bolt stunners today are not a one-size-fits-all proposition.


“There are now stunners designed for specific-sized animals,” he said. “Bulls, bison, sows and boars require a more powerful tool for better stunning results.”


Tools to ensure stunners are performing properly are another advancement.


“Stun testers provide plants the opportunity to confirm the stunner equipment is working properly before use. Electronic recordkeeping data collection to track long-term storage and trend information for each stunner is another valuable tool,” Bildstein said.


“The plants are also more aware of the importance of the stunners and how important maintenance and cleaning of the stunner is. The plants have specific SOP documentation on the stunner equipment that provides detail to the maintenance personnel as to the proper steps for maintenance,” he said.


Voogd pointed out that there has been a flurry of large capacity pork plants adopting CO2 stunning. This method allows for group handling and stunning of pigs versus electrically stunning one pig at a time in a single-file chute.


“This technology has dramatically reduced the stress on the individual pig and greatly improved the meat quality,” she said. “Electric prods no longer need to be used and relying on the pig’s natural desire to stay with pen mates helps to assure that they remain calm prior to stunning.”


However, many smaller-volume meat lockers still use electrical wands on pigs to stun them. Improvements in this equipment have also been positive.


“The change in 2010 to head-heart stunning versus head-only stunning greatly improved the likelihood of the pigs remaining insensible until they could be bled,” Voogd said.

The industry standard changed from head-only stunning for pigs to head-heart stunning in 2010.

Keeping solutions simple

For decades, Grandin has preached that most animal welfare problems can be fixed easily and don’t require tens of thousands of dollars in plant renovations, redesigns and makeovers. This was the case at the plants supplying McDonald’s and in most of today’s plants. For example, common issues like slipping and falling animals were fixed by installing non-slip flooring at plants and in loading and unloading areas. Most other issues were resolved by maintaining and repairing facilities as well as training and supervising workers.


At that time, there were 75 plants supplying McDonald’s, recalled Grandin, and only three of them required investments in expensive equipment.


“When it comes to handling and stunning, it’s much better now.” Grandin said.


During the process, it was discovered that one unfortunate reality is that some plants employed livestock handlers who enjoyed hurting and torturing animals.


“It’s not nice to say, but it was something we learned,” Grandin said.


One of the causes of animal welfare problems in the past decade was a flurry of mobility issues in cattle. Causes ranged from the use of feed additives (beta agonists) during warm weather to genetic complications causing leg conformation problems in cattle and hogs.


“A calm person makes a good animal handler,” Grandin said. “Good handling takes a lot of walking due to the need to bringing up small groups of animals at a time.


“Handling is not a flunky job; it’s a really important job.”

Posted on

The fall and rise of Russian wheat

By Arvin Donley

December 2021

The fall and rise of
Russian wheat

Once highly dependent on imports, Russia has become the world’s top wheat exporter.

World Grain

©scherbikovav – stock.adobe.com

Wheat is not only sown into Russia’s rich, black soil, but also woven into the cultural fabric of the agricultural powerhouse that straddles Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The image of wheat stocks can be found on Russian and Soviet Union-era flags, monuments, and artwork, reflecting the food grain’s importance as a national symbol of abundance and prosperity.

Recognized throughout history as a leading wheat producer, it wasn’t until recently that Russia began flooding the international market with significant volumes of the grain. In fact, throughout the latter part of the 20th century, Russia depended heavily on wheat imports to feed its people and its burgeoning livestock industry.

How did Russia go from being largely self-sufficient in wheat during the first 70 years of the 20th century to being among the world leaders in imports the century’s last three decades, only to dramatically reverse course and become the world’s leading wheat exporter during the last five years?

The fall and rise of the Russian wheat industry is a complicated story, influenced by international politics, domestic political and economic ideology, the country’s notorious volatile weather, and the ups and downs of the domestic livestock industry.

William Liefert, formerly of the US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service where he specialized in Russian and Former Soviet Union agriculture, describes the “black soil region” in southern Russia as being among the best agricultural land in the world.

“That land during the times in modern history when there has been sufficient peace has naturally been a surplus grain-producing region and exporter, as it is now,” said Liefert, noting that the 19th century Russian empire was a major grain exporter.

In the following century, the czarist regime’s collapse in 1917 led to the Bolsheviks’ rise to power in Russia and the formation of the Soviet Union. After consolidating authority in the late 1920s, Josef Stalin pushed for mass industrialization, which included agricultural collectivism, as part of the new Soviet Communist vision.

“There was suddenly complete state control of the economy,” Liefert told World Grain. “This led to mayhem in agriculture. About half of all livestock in the country was destroyed because the peasants decided they weren’t just going to hand it over to the government. It led to a horrible famine that centered on Ukraine, which was largely a man-made policy event. It did not have to happen. It’s a subject of historical debate that anywhere from 4 million to 10 million people died in that famine.”

Eventually, the Soviet Union became largely self-sufficient in grain, particularly after World War II through the 1960s. Although yields were below average compared to other leading wheat-producing nations, the Soviet Union was able to remain self-sufficient due to the enormous amount of land that was dedicated to grain production.

But in a Soviet agricultural system described as having “no strength, only weaknesses” by current Russian Grain Union President Arkadiy Zlochevskiy, farmers were “demotivated to improve production assets and make technological improvements” during that era.

“With the lack of motivation and in the context of the (planned) economy, even the program of virgin land development, which was called to the save the country’s food safety, didn’t help,” Zlochevskiy told World Grain.

Dimitry Rylko, general director of the Moscow, Russia-based Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR), said the strategic shift toward increasing imports became necessary.

“The Soviet system could not afford any longer the food shortages in normal, peaceful times,” Rylko told World Grain. “On the other hand, they could not keep up with growing consumer demand against the background of fixed wholesale and consumer prices and, basically, state-owned agriculture. The only way of solving this fundamental contradiction was to enter the import market.

The Great Grain Robbery

With domestic grain production trending downward and severe drought conditions in the early 1970s hindering output even further,the Soviet Union quietly changed course from its self-sufficiency strategy by brokering a secret deal to import grain from its arch-political enemy, the United States.

In July 1973, the Soviet Union purchased 10 million tonnes of mainly wheat and corn from the United States at subsidized prices, which caused global grain prices to soar. Soviet negotiators worked out a deal to buy the grain on credit but quickly exceeded their credit limit. American negotiators did not realize that both the Soviets and the world grain market had suffered shortfalls, and thus subsidized the purchase, leading it to be dubbed the “Great Grain Robbery.” The strategy backfired and intensified the crisis as global food prices rose at least 30% and global grain stockpiles were decimated.

“The farmers were happy, but the rest of the world was wondering what the heck was going on,” Liefert said. “What people may not know is the Great Grain Robbery coincided with a change in Russian policy regarding the expansion of the livestock sector.”

Liefert said the motivation for the sudden influx of imported grain wasn’t only to ensure low food prices and food security for the Russian people.

“Beginning in 1970, the Soviet regime decided to expand the livestock sector,” Liefert said. “They saw increasing meat and dairy production as the most direct way to increase the standard of living. It was actually kind of a benevolent policy. They began offering huge subsidies to the agricultural economy, mostly to the livestock sector. They succeeded in increasing the amount of meat and dairy products, but it came at a huge cost. Huge resources were thrown at that sector.”

From 1970 to 1990, the Soviet Union was a large importer of not only grain but soybeans and soybean meal as it attempted to bolster its livestock industry. However, when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, and Russia returned to being a singular country transitioning from a planned to more of a market-oriented economy, the government could no longer afford the subsidies, so they were eliminated.

“Without those subsidies, input prices rose significantly relative to output prices,” Liefert recalled. “Farmers could no longer afford all those inputs, and with the decline in inputs, outputs also fell considerably.”

He noted that Russia’s annual grain production fell from 95 million tonnes to 63 million tonnes during that 10-year period. But it wasn’t just the unfavorable grain prices versus high input costs that led to the slump in grain output. The Russian livestock sector contracted by about half in the 1990s, with annual meat production falling from 7.2 million tonnes in 1991 to 3.6 million tonnes per year in the final four years of the 20th century, Liefert said.

“The contraction of the livestock sector meant they didn’t have to import all that feed grain or produce so much domestically,” he said.

Russia’s two biggest advantages in wheat production

When it comes to wheat production, Russia has several advantages over many of its competitors.

“One of the real advantages is an abundance of nutrients in the soil, which is enormous,” said Russian Grain Union President Arkadiy Zlochevskiy. “We have the largest reserves of black earth – the most fertile type of soil. We have territories like the Kulunda steppe in Altai Territory, with potassium reserves large enough for 1,000 years. This is not taking into account that this reserve is being replenished each year. This means that for us, nutrients appear to be cheaper than for our competitors.”

A second advantage is cheap agricultural labor, which drives down production costs, Zlochevskiy said.

But the labor cost advantage is a bit of a double-edged sword, he concedes.

“The government targets to raise the incomes in rural settlements from the current 53% to 57% of the city dwellers’ incomes,” Zlochevskiy said. “This is not much, especially if we compare these figures with other countries. This (low incomes in Russian rural areas) is not good, but it is one of the factors of our competitiveness.”

He said there is a perception that Russian agriculture has a third advantage — access to large amounts of freshwater — but there are logistical problems.

“Indeed, we have large reserves of freshwater, but it is mainly concentrated in Baikal,” he said. “In order to bring it to a field, you’d waste time, and transportation costs would be tremendous.”

A golden era of Russian agriculture

After a difficult decade of transitioning to a more market-oriented economy, Russian agriculture began to reap the benefits of the new system and the shift from grain importer to exporter began.

“The main factor, which had a number of spinoffs, was privatization of the Russian economy and the shift to free market prices,” said Rylko, who also noted that land privatization, significant investment in port infrastructure, and the emergence of agro-holdings, or large-scale farming operations, helped Russia become a major grain exporter.

And once again, Russia’s decision in the early 2000s to strive for self-sufficiency in meat production benefited the grain industry as demand for feed grains increased sharply.

“The main goal of the Russian agricultural policy ever since the 1990s has been to revive the livestock sector and make the country as self-sufficient as possible in agriculture,” Liefert said. “A lot of that has been achieved. At one point Russia was importing over 3 million tonnes of meat per year. It is now importing about one-tenth of that.”

To supply the growing livestock sector, feed its 144 million people and earn the designation as the world’s top wheat exporter, Russia had to dramatically increase wheat output, which at the turn of the century was around 30 million tonnes per year. Mainly through increased yields, Russia saw its wheat production double to 60 million tonnes in 2010 and to a record 85 million tonnes in 2020.

“When you look at the last two decades, Russia has shown such impressive growth,” Stefan Vogel, global sector strategist for grain and oilseeds at Rabobank, told World Grain. “You look at the acreage changes; they’ve gone up 30% to 50% for many of the grain crops such as wheat and sunflower seed. Production has grown three times more than it was. Wheat production nowadays is 150% above where it was 20 years ago. It’s been impressive to see how much this country was able to scale up production.”

But bolstering production was just part of the equation to becoming a leading wheat exporter. Equally important was investing heavily in infrastructure improvements at the Port of Novorossyisk and other Russian port terminals.

“As soon as they started exporting wheat in large volumes, they realized they had great potential in this area but there were bottlenecks at the ports,” Liefert said. “Before they were importing grain, now they’re exporting it, and to export you need a lot more storage capacity at the ports.”

Mostly private investors have poured millions of dollars into port infrastructure improvements, including installing newer, larger grain storage bins, and dredging the sea floor to enable bigger ships to enter the port for loading.

The port expansions, which began in the early 2000s, have accelerated in recent years. In June, United Grain Co., Demetra-Holding and Federal State Unitary Enterprise Rosmorport reached agreement to develop a new pier at the Port of Novorossyisk to enhance the transshipment of grain cargo. It will double the total transshipment capacity at the site to about 25 million tonnes from 13.6 million tonnes, while increasing capacity of one-time storage to 870,000 tonnes from 370,000 tonnes.

The first year of the 21st century, Russia exported a modest 696,000 tonnes of wheat. Ten years later, having made tremendous inroads into Asian, Middle East and African markets, Russia increased that total to 18.5 million tonnes. By 2018, Russia more than doubled that total when it exported a jaw-dropping 41.4 million tonnes of wheat, which still stands as a record. Since then, the country has exported around 35 million tonnes per year.

To a certain degree, Russia’s push to become the world’s leading wheat exporter may have been precipitated by a lengthy price decline of oil and natural gas, which for many years have been Russia’s most lucrative export commodities. Despite the current spike in oil prices, many countries are vowing to switch to green alternatives, putting the long-term future of fossil fuels in doubt.

Perhaps that is part of what inspired Russia’s push for more revenue from agricultural exports. In 2012, Russian President Vladimir Putin boldly stated that Russia would double its grain exports by 2020.

With that goal met, the question is where will Russia’s grain industry go from here? Will it remain a powerhouse wheat exporter? Will it become a bigger producer and exporter of other grains? Will some unforeseen issue such as climate change or geopolitical tensions negatively impact its role as wheat supplier to the world market?

At the turn of the 21st century, Russia produced around 30 million tonnes of wheat per year. The country doubled that total by 2010 and in 2020 set a production record of 85 million tonnes.

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The fall and rise of Russian wheat

The fall and rise of Russian wheat

Once highly dependent on imports, Russia has become the world’s top wheat exporter.

Opportunities and challenges ahead

When looking to the future, one must always consider that while Russia has become a more market-oriented economy, it still operates under more government control than its wheat-exporting competitors such as the United States, Canada and Australia.

Since June 2021, Russia has placed a floating tax on wheat exports, reportedly to tame food inflation, which has gripped the country, as well as most of the world, in recent months. Historically, Russia has been quick to impose export quotas or even bans during times of drought or domestic food inflation. In 2010, after drought devastated the country’s wheat crop, it imposed an outright export ban, a move that caused global wheat futures to spike and may have indirectly contributed to the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East.

“I believe it is best to let the free market decide and then the producers and supply chain can work it out,” Vogel said. “But given how tied wheat prices are to bread prices, I think what Russia is doing right now is a better way than banning exports completely.”

Zlochevskiy said the Russian government’s interference with grain trade does a disservice to its farmers.

“The government doesn’t understand that we struggle for the sales market, and they constantly hamper farmers’ motivation,” he said. “We saw this back in 2014 when we had begun supplying durum wheat to the European Union. And at that moment, the government introduced a floating export duty, which primarily hurt the most expensive product items. All products with a price above ($180) were subjected to a 50% duty. This decision killed our exports of durum wheat. There is no incentive for farmers to grow it as long as no sales markets are available, so farmers stopped investing in this segment.”

If not durum wheat, is there potential for Russian farmers to become larger producers of other high-value grains and oilseeds? Opinions are divided on the subject.

“By all means this is going to happen,” Zlochevskiy said. “Motivation to grow wheat is going down, while to grow soybeans, to the contrary, is rising. The demand for corn is stable, primarily because livestock producers are yet to realize its potential as a feedstuff. However, the time will come when the demand for corn on the domestic market will rise.”

While Vogel doesn’t foresee a significant increase in Russian soybean production, he does see potential for greater production of another oilseed.

“I think the crop to watch besides wheat is rapeseed,” he said. “There is potential to see that rising, particularly in times when you have Canada facing a drought, prices for canola being high, and Europeans still scrambling for imports. I assume the Russian farmer will look at that opportunity and invest more on the rapeseed side.”

While Russia has succeeded in modernizing its grain infrastructure at port terminals, the country still lags well behind its biggest grain export competitors with mostly outdated inland grain infrastructure.

Vogel said Russian rail and waterway grain transportation systems are in need of a significant upgrade.

“Given that rail is still largely state-owned, there may be issues with getting enough rail cars and getting a competitive freight rate,” Vogel said. “When you compare the big grain companies in other parts of the world – ADM, Bunge, and Cargill in the US, for instance, have developed a nice supply chain from the inland elevator all the way though rail transport and river transport. It’s the same more or less in Brazil. I don’t see that happening in Russia where the international companies haven’t developed as much strength as in other exporting regions.”

In terms of increasing wheat production, there are two paths to consider: Expand the amount of planted area or improve the yields on the land that is already in production.

The problem with expanding wheat acreage is that most of the land that could be brought into production is marginal at best, Rylko said.

“We have truly vast land reserves, but it wouldn’t make much economic sense in involving this land in grain production,” Rylko said. “We need first to improve effeciency of already existing operations, in particular, to boost already ongoing digitalization of our farming. We should not stand on the path of virgin land development. This is expensive and promises poor returns.”

He is more optimistic regarding the potential for crop yield improvement.

“We still have big reserves regarding fertilizer and pesticide application,” Rylko said. “Moreover, one can see quite big intra-regional differences as the best farmsteads in Russia are using more inputs and achieving higher (yields) than average farms.”

The country’s farmers also have been slow to adopt no-tillage farming techniques that reduce soil erosion, increase soil biological activity and increase soil organic matter, all of which can lead to economic gains for farmers over time.

“Such a big shift requires a combination of big investments, big patience and big knowledge,” Rylko said. “So, despite the tremendous success, there is still a lot to do on the already utilized lands.”

Wheat quality is another area with room for improvement, although Rylko noted that progress was being made.

“I remember just a few years ago, in the middle 2010s, that Russian exporters dreamed of shifting from the 11.5% to 12.5% protein category,” he said.

“For at least the last four seasons in a row this dream is the reality: 12.5% has become a predominant export quality. Amazingly, this season we haven’t seen any vessel shipped by the Black Sea terminals with protein below 12.5%.”

The image of wheat stocks can be found on Russian and Soviet Union-era flags, monuments, and artwork, reflecting the food grain’s importance as a national symbol of abundance and prosperity.

Russia no stranger to geopolitical issues impacting trade

In a world that is divided politically by democratic and autocratic governments, it’s not unusual to see agricultural trade disputes between countries with differing philosophies. This has especially been the case with Russia over the years.

In 1980, the United States, which at the time was a major supplier of wheat to the Soviet Union, halted shipments to Russia in protest of Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. In 2014, Russia, in a much better position from a grain reserves standpoint, banned high-value agricultural imports from the United States and Western European countries. The ban was Russia’s response to geopolitical tension with the West stemming from the country’s conflict with Ukraine.

Currently, political tensions between the United States and China have resulted in some restriction of trade between the two countries. Stefan Vogel, global sector strategist for grain and oilseeds at Rabobank, said it’s possible that Russia, which is more politically aligned with China, could see its trade flows altered due to the China-US conflict.

“There was a study earlier this year about what would happen if the trade wars between the US and China worsen significantly to the point where the countries barely traded with each other,” Vogel said. “It could be a situation where you start to see blocs of trade with the US, Australia and Europe in one bloc and Russia and China forming a natural bloc on the other side. In that case you could see a future where China would import more wheat from Russia for feed and replace some corn.

“It is a situation where if there is further deterioration of the situation, it could also involve countries sympathizing with either the US or China, and the agricultural sector could be heavily impacted by such moves. China relies heavily on soy imports but that’s not something Russia can easily supply.”

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From feed to food

By Jennifer Semple

December 2021

From feed
to food

A look at nearly a century of Nestlé Purina meeting the nutritional needs of pets as the industry has evolved.

Pet Food Processing

Photos provided by Purina

According to a few sources including the Pet Food Institute and the European Pet Food Industry Federation (FEDIAF), the first commercially prepared pet food was a dog biscuit product introduced in England by businessman James Spratt around 1860. Spratt’s first formula is reported to have included a mix of wheat meals, vegetables, beetroot and beef blood.


As the Industrial Revolution helped the economy grow and a middle class emerged in the late 1800s and early 1900s, domesticated dogs and cats were elevated from working animals to companion status and were gradually welcomed into our homes.


Food for pets began being regulated in the United States separately from animal feed when the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO), an organization of US state and federal regulatory officials, first included language specifically for pet food in their model bills in 1917.


AAFCO established a definition for “complete and balanced” pet food 52 years later in 1969. This was probably largely due to a better understanding of canine and feline nutritional needs made possible by the research conducted by early 20th century pet food companies such as Purina.


In 1926, Purina established a research farm in Gray Summit, Mo. to study animal nutrition. The farm included the first-ever canine nutrition center. Purina launched their first dog food, Purina Dog Chow, the same year.


“Since its inception, Purina has been driven to use science to better understand how to improve the health and wellbeing of pets,” said Susan Anderson-Bauer, Purina archivist, St. Louis, Mo. “Over the years, Purina scientists, nutritionists and veterinarians have made groundbreaking discoveries to help dogs and cats live longer, healthier lives.”


Before commercial pet food was available, pets typically ate table scraps or whatever they could forage on their own. Many pets were malnourished, and both
disease and short life spans were common.


In recipes and marketing material dating back to the early 1930s, the key ingredients highlighted in early iterations of Dog Chow included meat, wheat germ meal, buttermilk, cod liver oil, barley malt, molasses, oat cereal, corn cereal and wheat bran. Dog Chow was initially produced in small dry squares referred to as ‘checkers.’ Over the years, as more knowledge was gained and ingredient access improved, the recipe continued to evolve.


Not only has Dog Chow endured for 95 years and been joined by many other successful Purina brands, the company has continued to innovate and evolve the original brand. In the 1950s, Dog Chow was the first commercial pet food produced using extrusion technology to form kibble shapes which replaced the ‘checkers’ squares. This technique was developed at Purina and provides an expanded dry kibble with superior nutrition, digestibility and palatability. Today, extrusion is an industry standard practice.


“Beyond extrusion, Purina continues to develop proprietary machinery and techniques in-house to bring innovation to life,” Anderson-Bauer said. “In the early 1980s, Purina developed a special manufacturing process that precooked the meat prior to sending it through the extruder. This allowed the company to offer pet food with meat as the dominant ingredient.”


In 1965, Purina was the first to create a puppy food specially formulated with the additional protein and nutrients puppies need to develop and grow durng the critical first year of life. And as recently as 2018 and 2019, Purina launched new formulas under this brand — Dog Chow Complete Adult With Real Beef providing additional protein options in the dry dog food line, and the brand entered the fastest growing category in pet food with the addition of Dog Chow Wet High Protein made with real meat and 40 grams of protein per can.

Left: Science and R&D have been at the foundation of Purina’s pet care business from an early stage. Right: Purina expanded the use of extrusion technology to cat diets in 1962 when the company launched Purina Cat Chow.
1860

First commercially prepared pet food

1917

Pet food included in AAFCO model bills

1926

Dog Chow launches, first Purina animal research facility

1950

Purina begins developing extrusion technology

1962

Purina Cat Chow launches, first extruded cat food

1965

Purina launches, first pet food formulated for puppies

1969

AAFCO defines “complete and balanced”

1976

Purina Fit & Trim launches, first OTC weight loss diet for dogs

1990

Purina therapeutic Veterinary Diets launches

1991

Purina launches first cat food proven to promote urinary tract health

1999

Purina establishes global program to study canine genome

2006

Probiotic supplement Purina FortiFlora launches

2010

First Purina ONE formula to improve canine cognition in older dogs

2015

First Purina ONE formula to improve canine cognition in older dogs

2016

Pro Plan Prime Plus for senior cats launches

2020

Pro Plan LiveClear launches

For nearly a century, Purina has pioneered both pet nutrition and technological advancements for producing pet diets.

A foundation in research

“When Donald Danforth, the son of Purina’s founder, William H. Danforth, joined the company in 1920, he had a strong appreciation for science and advocated for expansion of our R&D capabilities” Anderson-Bauer said. “It was Donald who championed the idea of the experimental farm and research kennel in Gray Summit.”


It’s notable that while Purina is known for pet nutrition, there are many pet experts on staff dedicated to scientific understanding of pet behavior and pet welfare.


“Purina takes a holistic approach to pet health with nutrition being a key foundational component,” Anderson-Bauer explained. “In total, the company has more than 500 Purina scientists, veterinarians, and pet care experts on staff to ensure our commitment to unsurpassed quality and nutrition.”


The extensive resources Purina has devoted to research have led to several ground-breaking studies and nutritional breakthroughs over the decades that Purina reports have been scientifically proven to improve the quality of life for pets and, in some cases, even extend their lives. These include a 14-year life-span study in dogs, which proved the importance of keeping dogs in lean body condition from puppyhood and throughout their lives. This life-span study led to adjustments in
recommended feeding amounts.


“Purina was the first to use that knowledge to recommend feeding less of the food than previously recommended,” Anderson-Bauer said.


Additionally, in 1999, Purina established the Canine Reference Family DNA Distribution Center, which worked globally with institutions that were studying the canine genome. This has led to major, subsequent innovations based on new understandings of genomics.


More recently, Purina conducted research about protecting brain health in aging dogs, as well as a nine-year cat study which demonstrated that feeding a specific blend of nutrients can extend the healthy lives of cats.


Another recent discovery by Purina, following 10 years of research, found that a cat diet formulated with an egg ingredient containing antibodies to Fel d1 can mitigate a major cat allergen causing adverse reactions in humans.

Meeting human expectations

People have increasingly shifted to seeing their pet as an important member of the family. This has led to many pet owners projecting their own food preferences,
expectations and philosophies on their pet’s food.


“Purina has consistently been able to provide complete and balanced nutritional options for dogs and cats through the years that meet the nutritional needs of the pet, first and foremost, and meet pet owner expectations,” Anderson-Bauer said.


Purina delivered Fit & Trim, the first over-the-counter weight loss diet for dogs, for the 1976 fitness-focused consumer. As pet owners sought premium or gourmet products in the 1980s, Purina launched Fancy Feast gourmet, Pro Plan with real meat as the number one ingredient, and Purina ONE, the first super premium pet food sold in the grocery channel. With a broad product portfolio sold throughout the globe, Purina continues to meet the needs of today’s pet owners looking for attributes important to them including natural, plain and simple ingredients sourced sustainably.


“For more than 90 years, Purina has been guided by our purpose of enriching the lives of pets and the people who love them,” Anderson-Bauer said.


A company must do many things correctly to remain a leader for nearly a century. For Purina, the longevity and success likely comes as a result of a true passion and love of pets, a foundation in science, dedication to innovation and a commitment to quality and safety.

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Technological Evolution

By Kimberlie Clyma

November 2021

Technological
Evolution

Today’s productive, efficient and safe meat processing industry owes its advancements to the pioneers of the past

Meat+Poultry

Reiser

At the turn of the 20th century, meat packing was the largest industry in the United States – it was responsible for $1 billion in annual sales. Today, annual sales total more than $150 billion in meat packing and processing and $65 billion in poultry slaughter and processing.


In the early 1900s, giant slaughterhouses and meat packing plants were found in the Midwestern Heartland in cities such as Chicago, Milwaukee and Kansas City, which were nestled between the many ranches in the Western part of the country and the growing cities sprinkled on the East Coast. Today, meat processing plants are located east to west, north to south, in an industry that employs more than 500,000 people – and more than 2 million people along the supply chain including those who supply the packing and processing industries with ingredients and equipment and the many who work in transportation, retail and foodservice.


The meat processing industry is not only responsible for the growth of meat production and consumption across the country, but it helped to shape several technological advancements used in meat processing and packaging itself and in other production-related industries. It was responsible for the rise of the railroad industry, the labor movement and transportation, not to mention innovations such as industrial refrigeration, the assembly line and vacuum packaging. Tales of the pioneers of these technologies can be found in the storied histories of the industry’s equipment leaders, many of whom are still involved in the meat industry today.

First machines, then processes

Meat packing plants began appearing in the United States in the early 1800s, mostly on the East Coast. But by the mid-1800s growth moved to the Midwest as the Chicago Stockyards became the biggest US livestock market and meat packing plants emerged in other Midwestern cities. As more consumers started demanding meat, meat packers looked to expand and mechanize their operations. Little by little, meat processing equipment started becoming available, making the business of breaking down carcasses and processing the meat more profitable.


The early meat processing equipment pioneers made it possible for meat packers to streamline their operations, increasing production amounts and production speed.
“Many of the early equipment manufacturers worked with the intention of improving not just processes, not just trying to make more money, but they were trying to make things better for people,” said Brent Meyer, owner of Brent Meyer Communication. “They were asking themselves: ‘How do we get food to other places? How can we transport food better? How can we make things safer?’ A huge part of the industry that many people don’t think about, is the idea that they were working to make a system, a process or a product better.”


Historians credit the last couple of decades of the 1800s and first few decades of the 1900s with a number of the primary inventions used in today’s meat processing environments. In the 1880s, mechanical mixers, stuffers and choppers were developed. By the early 1900s, cure pumps, slicing machines and conveyorized tables were invented. And by the 1920s, band saws and meat grinders made meat processing faster and easier.


The father of the modern meat grinder was said to be Karl Friedrich Christian Ludwig Freiherr Drais von Sauerbron from Germany. He invented the manual meat grinder in the mid-1800s. He also invented the typewriter, a stenograph machine and a “wooden running machine” that later evolved into the modern bicycle.
Two women are credited with helping to shape the way meat is cut in processing environments today. First, in 1813, an American Shaker in Massachusetts named Sarah “Tabitha” Babbit invented the circular saw. Bandsaws were later invented and in 1846, Anne Pauline Crepin from France invented a way to weld the ends of the bands securely together, allowing band saws to successfully function.


“Thousands of technological developments, innovations in engineering designs and incremental improvements in food manufacturing equipment and technology have been put into place since the early 1900s,” said David Seckman, president and chief executive officer of the Food Processing Suppliers Association, which represents the suppliers to the food processing and packaging industry. “Today’s food processing and packaging is radically different than that of 100 years ago.”


Cozzini Bros. started out as a one-man knife sharpening business on the streets of Chicago and evolved into a 4th generation family blade business (now called PRIMEdge). After years of simply sharpening blades for butcher shops and restaurants, Cozzini Bros. took the next step into the processing world, sharpening bowl choppers, grinding plates and slicing blades. Their quest for more efficiency and consistency, led them to create shelf-sharpening blades for continuous production bowl choppers using pumps and pressure. One thing led to another, and the company started producing blending, conveying and pumping systems before selling to Middleby in 2010. Now they’ve gone full circle and their current company, PRIMEdge, is back in the blade business.


“Suppliers like us had a lot of opportunities to evolve through the years,” said Ivo Cozzini, CEO of PRIMEdge. “We had opportunities to really think things through, to become more automated, safer, and make better pieces of equipment. The more you could evolve, the more successful you could be.”

Packaging meat used to be a very labor intensive job. Each piece of meat was placed into a bag, vacuum sealed, clipped and then moved on.
Packaging meat used to be a very labor intensive job. Each piece of meat was placed into a bag, vacuum sealed, clipped and then moved on. Sealed Air / CRYOVAC brand

Moving down the line

Early signs of automation can be traced back to the late 1800s when meat packing facilities started to use an assembly line system to move product through the operation. In the 1870s, in plants in Chicago and Cincinnati, slaughterhouses used monorail trolleys to move the carcasses past the line of workers, each of whom performed a specific task. This is often historically referred to as a “dis-assembly” line.


The process of different workers performing singular tasks was later adopted by other industries, but not truly recognized for its efficiencies until Henry Ford designed an assembly line in 1913 to manufacture his Model T cars. He credited the meat packing “dis-assembly” lines with giving him the idea. Thanks to this highly efficient process (which cut the time it took to assemble a car from 12 ½ hours to 93 minutes), Ford was able to drastically reduce the price of its automobiles.


“Many initial advancements were focused on providing faster machines that could handle more capacity, but as the technology improved so did innovation,” said Wayne Bryant, senior vice president of sales for Reiser USA, which was founded in 1959 as the service and sales agent of Germany-based Vemag. “For example, electronic advancements led to more precise machines that provided better, more consistent portions and limited re-works and waste. Improvements in packaging resulted in more attractive solutions that provided better food safety and longer shelf life while using more sustainable materials. The one thing driving all this change and innovation has been processor need.


“The need for increased automation has driven technological advancement in the equipment industry for decades. Processors have always looked for solutions that can provide more capacity, faster throughput, and more efficiencies. Throughout history they have wanted solutions that enable them to be more precise, more productive, and more profitable, and that continues today,” Bryant said.

Wrap it up

As a part of this year’s Pack Expo show in Las Vegas, PMMI – The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies, put together an exhibit called Pack to the Future, which featured 25 historic machines, more than 230 photos, 250 packaging facts and a lineup of speakers. Jack Aguero, president of Aguero Associates, and Meyer were co-curators for the event. During the 18-month long process of procuring equipment, photos and facts about the history of packaging, the two learned a lot about the evolution of the industry and its impact on society as a whole, as well as on its influence on the meat industry.


Packaging can trace its roots back for centuries. Pottery was an early form of packaging, as was paper, glass, metal and later plastics. Each material has its own history and evolution through the years and variations in uses, especially when it came to food.


“As civilizations developed, goods needed to be packaged for transport. Packaging grew in sync with the ideas of commerce and trade,” Meyer said. “Historically, you can see how packaging has really impacted and benefited mankind. Many of the things that we have today are because of how packaging has evolved. Culture wouldn’t have developed the way it has throughout history if we didn’t have packaging.”


Some packaging developments were out of necessity, while others occurred almost by accident. In 1809, General Napoleon Bonaparte offered 12,000 francs to anyone who could find a way to preserve food for his troops. Nicholas Appert, a Parisian chef, discovered how food sealed in glass containers and then boiled would help food stay fresh for long periods. But glass wasn’t ideal for transporting to the troops, so soon after Peter Durand of Britain received a patent for inventing the tin can.


“The Industrial Revolution is really where modern packaging began,” Aguero said. “1795 to 1850 was the very beginning of modern packaging. Then from 1850 to 1900, the first packaging machines started to enter the market. Between 1900 and 1950, packaging machinery became a powerful industry.”


Did what was going on in society effect the development of different types of packaging or did new packaging help to change the culture? Arguments can be made for both. “Packaging and society have a very symbiotic relationship,” Meyer said. “Changes in society have helped to drive packaging and then packaging also makes changes in society.”


Seckman explained further, “Back in the early 1900s, preparing food for the nightly family dinner was labor intensive and normally took hours to prepare. There were very few processed foods to provide ready-to-cook options. Then, times changed. In the early 1920s, processed foods were beginning to be introduced into stores. World War I brought a new innovation – canned foods – which were created for our troops. After the war, gas stoves, newer kitchen appliances and refrigeration allowed families to purchase, store and prepare food more easily. And, in the 1930s, more ready-to-eat foods hit the market.


“With each passing decade, the food industry has evolved and the manufacturers of food processing and packaging equipment have continued to work with processors on a consistent basis in order to meet, address and further improve upon the technology needs of the industry.”

The ‘Kleenex’ of packaging

“The world interacts with packaging, and the world, in some ways drives packaging,” Aguero said. “There’s always somebody in the packaging industry who is going to try to invent a better way to do something.”


Enter, Cryovac.


In 1941, the Cryovac brand was born, and later that brand would be synonymous with meat packaging. The trademark was filed by the Dewey and Almy Company, which later became the W.R. Grace Co. In 1998, the Cryovac brand and technology was purchased by Sealed Air. Many meat plants to this day call their packaging room, the “Cryovac room.”


“When you think about some products you automatically think about certain iconic brands, like Kleenex and Jell-O and Band-Aid. I would put our brand Cryovac right there with them,” said Shawn Harris, executive director of marketing for Sealed Air’s Food Protein Platform. “Cryovac has become synonymous with vacuum packaging, and there’s a great sense of pride with that.”


In 1946, Cryovac began testing monomer bags as the first Cryovac Barrier Bag utilizing a snorkel vacuum that was sealed with a metal clip. The first equipment produced was the 8200 model that vacuumed and clipped the co-extruded barrier material.


“The piece of meat would come down the conveyor, the employee would grab it, put it on the hose, suck the air out of it, clip it and put it back on the conveyor before the next one came down,” Harris said. “It was very labor intensive.”


In 1975, Cryovac introduced the 8300 series of Rotary Chamber Vacuum Machines. This machine enabled increased throughput with its rotary design (often referred to as the “octopus”) and eliminated the clip by using heat seal bars that were water cooled.


“This was the machine that enabled the beef industry to transform,” Harris said. “Now carcass beef could be cut and primals could be marketed across the country.”

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Association connection

  • One of the earliest associations that can be linked to today’s North American Meat Institute (NAMI) was the American Meat Packers Association, which formed in 1906.
  • The Food Processing Suppliers Association (FPSA) can trace its roots back to the Association of Ice Cream Supply Men in 1911.
  • In 1922, the Association of Ice Cream Supply Men and National Association of Ice Cream Manufacturers held their first trade show in Cleveland, a precursor to today’s Process Expo.
  • The Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute was formed in 1933.
  • In 1956, the first PMMI Packaging Machinery Show was held.

Thinking out of the box

After decades of selling beef in carcass form (fore and hind quarters), packers began to further process wholesale cuts of beef and vacuum package them in smaller, sub-primal portions. It allowed for shipping cost savings and took advantage of the increasing demands by supermarkets for specific cuts of meat. This “boxed beef” idea was developed by a beef packer founded in 1960 in Denison, Iowa, called Iowa Beef Processors (later known as IBP, and purchased by Tyson Foods in 2001).


“We would still be marketing beef swinging on hooks without this technology. But now a retailer didn’t have to buy a whole side of beef and hope they could sell it all. They could buy what they needed for their market and just sell that,” Harris said. “Boxed beef really was one single thing that changed the value of the whole chain. It took so much waste out of the system.”


The pork industry continued to wrap its products in paper until the 1980s.


While IBP is credited with developing the idea for boxed beef, Cryovac’s rotary chamber vacuum packaging machine gave the packers the tools and technology to make it happen.


In a 2001 interview with Livestock Weekly, Robert Peterson, former IBP chairman of the board and CEO, said, “The company that really made boxed beef possible was Cryovac.”


“It’s powerful when someone that’s one of your largest customers and a pioneer in the industry says, ‘This would not get done without Cryovac,’” Harris said. “These are the things that change industries.”


Vacuum packaging is still readily used today, as equipment suppliers continue to advance the technology. Modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) technology, developed in 1979, differs from vacuum packaging in that it doesn’t necessarily remove oxygen from the packaging, it just adjusts the oxygen and CO2 levels in the package. Both provide added shelf life and allow processors to expand product offerings and distribution, efficiently and safely.


“From vacuum packaging to modified atmosphere packing and now high-pressure processing, the evolution of packaging continues,” said Jorge Izquierdo, vice president of Market Development for PMMI. “The demand for convenience keeps growing, so new technologies will continue to be developed to meet those demands.”

The perfect patty

Sometimes it’s the little things that make a big impact on history. When it comes to the origin of the hamburger, there are some disputes as to where and when the popular Hamburger Steak was first put between two pieces of bread and turned into the popular hand-held dish so many people enjoy today – most historians say it was between 1885 and 1904.


Some say it happened at the Erie County Fair in 1885, others say a Texas cook named Fletcher Davis was the first to serve hamburger steak between two pieces of Texas toast. And, then there’s Billy Ingram, founder of White Castle who launched his business in 1921 selling small, square hamburger “sliders” by the sack full.


When it comes to the mass production of hamburger patties, another name is found in the history books – Harry H. Holly.


Holly had been working as a structural iron worker when the Depression hit in the late 20s. After losing his job and struggling to find another, he and his wife opened a hamburger shop under the back stairs of his grandmother’s home in Calumet City, Ill. Despite the challenging times, his business grew.


However, he soon realized that molding the burgers by hand took too much time and didn’t allow for any consistency in the size and shape of the patties he was making. In 1937, Holly built a wooden squeeze press using the rim of a dinner plate as a form and molded the patties by pulling a lever. After tweaking his prototype a few times, he patented the machine.


He then sold his hamburger business and started building steel versions of his patty forming machine and Hollymatic Corp. was born. The company celebrated its 80th anniversary in 2017.


Today, Hollymatic and its sister companies Rollstock, NuTEC Manufacturing, Former and Patty Paper, create machines for every part of the meat processing line.
“All of those processes of processing the product are what we’ve built on from that initial springboard of a patty machine from Harry Holly – up and down the processing line,” said Sam Pantano, vice president of national accounts for Hollymatic. “We take it from cut it, grind it, form to process it and package it – we do it all.”

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(R)evolution

By Andy Nelson

November 2021

(R)evolution

Technological innovations drive perimeter growth through the decades.

Supermarket Perimeter

KATELYN BETZ – SOSLAND PUBLISHING CO., DOVER

For decades, the size and scope of the supermarket perimeter have grown by leaps and bounds. Much of that growth wouldn’t have been possible without groundbreaking technological innovations —both in the aisles and behind the counters.


From both the retailer’s and the consumer’s vantage points, perimeter technology has made huge strides, said Rick Stein, vice president of fresh for Arlington, Va.-based FMI – The Food Industry Association.


That growth has been especially strong in the past few years, he said. Take inventory control, which is crucial for anything involving fresh foods whose clock is ticking even before they hit the store.


“So much work has been done to manage inventory to make sure that only the freshest product is being sold,” Stein said. “When I look on my career, 45 years ago it was done manually —and even 10 years ago it was still done manually.”


Now, with Artificial Intelligence and other technologies, retailers can monitor exactly what’s sold, when. And with the right algorithms, they can keep just enough product on hand to both meet consumer demand and keep foods from going bad and becoming unsellable.


With labor shortages such a concern for most retailers these days, that’s more important than ever, Stein said.


“The perimeter is coming out of the stone age, becoming like what center-store is.”
That’s also true from the shopper’s point of view, Stein said. It wasn’t that long ago that consumers had to rely exclusively on instore signage and print circulars to learn about the products they were interested in buying. Now, with QR codes, learning which foods are local, organic or pesticide-free, or learning how to prep and cook them, is just a click away.


The impetus to create and apply those technologies ramped up exponentially during COVID, Stein said, where countless converts were made on the digital side, using ecommerce to buy their fresh foods, using augmented reality to figure out what to do with them once they purchased them and many other applications.


“It’s not unusual now for consumers to shop with their cell phones, and the day of the QR code has really come into its own,” Stein said.


But ecommerce and also applications of technology aren’t just alternatives to the instore experience. They’re also making that experience much more engaging, Stein said.


“One thing I think retailers will really put a lot of effort into is creating better experiences for consumers in brick and mortar. Think of all the real estate they own. One area that really allows them to create more experiences is the perimeter.”

Point A to Point B —faster

One of the biggest technology-related changes that has helped the grocery perimeter become what it is today is the revolution in transportation efficiencies.


For much of the grocery store’s history, produce and other fresh offerings were limited by seasonality, given how difficult it was to get products to market before they went bad, said Eric Richard, industry relations coordinator for the Madison, Wis.-based International Dairy Deli Bakery Association (IDDBA).


That all changed with advancements in refrigeration technology, logistics and other factors that benefited from higher-tech upgrades.


“Now we can enjoy products from all over the country and world because of logistics and supply chain advancements,” Richard said.


Today, blockchain and other technologies continue to refine those supply chain-related advances even more, he added. Particularly when it comes to preventing, or at least containing and minimizing, food safety-related outbreaks, these technologies are playing a crucial role.


Looking at specific perimeter departments in particular, instore bakeries have benefited tremendously in the fairly recent past from oven innovations, Richard said.
He remembers being asked to help out in the instore bakery of the grocery store he worked at as a teenager in New Jersey in the 1990s. The difference between the baking technology then and now is like “night and day,” he said, and led to a lot of trepidation about his youthful efforts.


“Being able to bake high-quality products in the instore bakery has a lot do with equipment innovations,” he said. “It certainly would have helped me have a lot more confidence that the bread I was trying to bake would come out perfect. Having the right oven at the right temperature with the right settings, that are easy to program and calculate —that’s especially important when training the next generation of bakers.”

The equipment innovations have made it much easier for instore bakeries to bring new workers on board, he added, a fact that could not be more important in today’s tight-labor environment.


Instore delis have similarly benefited from technological upgrades of ovens and other equipment in recent decades, Richard said. Stovetop ovens, for instance, have transformed the deli from a department that as recently as the 90s was known mainly for deli meats and cheeses and sides to one that now rivals many restaurants for the quality of its retail foodservice offerings.


“In order to prepare all those foods you have to have the right equipment,” Richard said.

Creating experiences

There’s a fine line between helping consumers via technology and giving them too much, but Stein is confident that retailers will continue to find the right balance. A shopper who has downloaded their retailer’s app will start to get messages as soon as they enter their store, and they can use that information to guide them to exactly the kinds of things they’re likely to purchase.


“That becomes an experience — they don’t look at it as being inundated with technology, they like it. It may help them find not only the exact ingredients they want for the meal they’re cooking that night, but also how to use their leftovers to avoid food waste.”


In FMI’s latest round of Speaks industry surveys, retailers told the association that they plan on expanding their retail foodservice operations, and that technology will be a key to helping them do so. And it’s not just about dinner anymore, Stein said —consumers are also looking for breakfast and lunch options.


For decades, grocery stores didn’t have the same incentives as other industries to embrace technology, Stein said. That was because supermarkets always enjoyed a strong labor market. They didn’t need to automate like the garment, automobile industries did.


Those days are over.


“Everything converged at once to motivate our retailers to think of technology as a fundamental underpinning, and now we’re seeing a lot of advancement. And when the supermarket industry puts its mind to doing something, it gets it done, and done better than most other industries. I think of technology as a fundamental foundation that runs through all of our business. The business is going to advance, new technologies are going to come, and supermarkets are poised to embrace more than they ever have in the past.”


The very floor plans of instore departments have also benefited from technological upgrades, Richard said. For one thing, they’re easy to maneuver in given the advent of smaller, more efficient cases that come in a variety of sizes to fit the appropriate spaces.


“In the past, when you had giant bulky cases to walk around, it made it difficult to browse,” he said. “And the lighting in the cases has improved so much. It used to be you had no idea what you were looking at, it was so dark inside.” The ease and convenience of grab-and-go and other self-serve cases has helped transform the instore deli into the multifaceted, consumer-friendly place it is today.

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Equipment innovations

Developments in meat slicers and other equipment used in the perimeter have played a crucial role in the rapid expansion of many value-added deli and prepared foods offerings, said Carolyn Bilger, marketing director for Troy, Ohio-based Hobart Food Equipment Group.


“Deli-made meals are being chosen more and more by shoppers to replace going to restaurants or to save time in their home kitchens,” Bilger said. “Along with those meal options, the grab and go area of retail began its growth before COVID-19 and has increased exponentially since the pandemic.”


More and more people are picking up deli meats and cheeses in the perimeter of the deli rather than lining up at the counter, she added.


Customers now have more options in fresh meal prep than ever before. The grab and go deli meat and cheese selections now include premium options as well as the store brand, and today’s shoppers, Bilger said, like how the convenience of choosing freshly sliced items without waiting in line at the counter matches with their hectic lifestyles.


Hobart has met the call for this surging demand with products like its recently launched Portion Scale Slicer, which incorporates the weighing equipment into the slicer, thereby increasing the efficiency of grab-and-go prep. “The user can program the weight needed and the automatic slicer will slice the desired amount and pause to allow for removal,” Bilger said. “Following the pause, it will again slice the programmed amount or meat or cheese.”


The slicer’s built-in scale keeps the user from having to separately weigh the packaged amount, increasing the efficiency of the overall process. Hobart studies show that up to 40% of an operator’s prep time for a 10-pound chub can be saved by using the Portion Scale Slicer.


Growth in fresh perimeter departments shows no signs of slowing, Bilger said, especially with more consumers seeking options to aid in home meal creation. Hobart reps love to spend time in retail delis around the country, she added, learning from its users and understanding what their pain points are.


“Our goal in product development is to continuously improve our equipment and find solutions to increase efficiency and satisfaction for the deli associates. This allows them more time to provide meal and deli solutions in the perimeter.”

Putting it all together

Over the past several decades, the perimeter of the grocery store has evolved the most as food retailers battle to gain and retain shopper loyalty by providing fresh and healthy options, said Marjorie Proctor, design and marketing specialist for Conyers, Ga.-based Dover Food Retail, whose products range from Hillphoenix brand refrigeration systems, power systems and display cases to Anthony brand doors.


Grocers, who are always on the cutting edge of industry technologies to give them a competitive advantage, partner with manufacturers like Hillphoenix to transform the perimeter by exploring new instore designs and technologies, she said.


That includes lighting, departmental programs, merchandising displays, maintaining product integrity, and energy efficiency — all of which have helped the grocery industry get to where it is today.


For Hillphoenix, that journey began 30 years ago, when Phoenix Refrigeration, a refrigeration manufacturer, saw the need to acquire a display case company to invest a forward-thinking approach to refrigeration as a whole.


Phoenix’s subsequent collaboration with Hill Refrigeration resulted in the creation of Hillphoenix. Since then, several Hillphoenix innovations have helped perimeter departments evolve and prosper.


One standout has been Coolgenix display case technology. A secondary coolant conduction design that enables significant increases in product shelf life and dramatically reduces product shrinkage in fresh meat and seafood service display cases, Coolgenix was a radical departure from convection cooling that was traditionally used to refrigerate the entire case interior versus concentrating the cooling directly on the product.


Hillphoenix has also made significant innovations in natural refrigerant technology. Two decades ago, the company installed the first test store utilizing CO2 as a secondary fluid.


“As refrigerants are phased out, natural refrigerants like CO2 and hydrocarbons such as R-290 are more important than ever as environmental concerns are at the forefront as sustainable refrigerants transition into the overall grocery sustainability plan,” Proctor said. “They have zero impact on the environment and are more efficient and more economical.”

Let there be light

Advancements in lighting technologies have also made big changes in perimeter departments in the past three decades, particularly the past 15 years, Proctor said.
That period has seen the introduction of LEDs, reduced lamp diameters, changing color temperatures and focusing light more directly on product to increase contrast.


“Gone are the days of just providing light all over inside a store,” Proctor said. “For a perimeter to be successful today, it’s important for stores to use lighting to tell their story.”


In 2009 Hillphoenix introduced the Clearvoyant LED light system, designed for the company’s refrigerated display cases. Compared to T8 fluorescent lighting, Clearvoyant is 69% more energy-efficient. Grocers also appreciate the ability to direct light from angles of 0 to 30°, the low profile of the light rod design, and the various color temperatures available based on the type of food being merchandised, Proctor said.As important as lighting is, it just sets the stage — merchandising is the star. “Over the decades we’ve seen merchandising become more three-dimensional in terms of bump out displays, water-falling product, and going vertical,” Proctor said. “Today, cases have much more vertical heights in most areas versus 20 or 30 years ago. This is where the total refrigeration and store package comes in.”


Case and refrigeration systems have to be designed to work with all of the various merchandising displays so they not only look good but they do their main job — keeping product fresh.


Another technology that has enjoyed tremendous growth in recent decades, particularly the past 10 years, is refrigerated door cases, Proctor said.


In the past, it was commonly believed that sales would be compromised as soon as product was put behind doors.


But today, thanks to improvements in door designs and door case lighting, sales can actually be gained by merchandising behind glass doors.


“Not only does it save a great amount of energy, it increases the time that customers spend in the department purchasing products as the result of warmer aisles and broader merchandising schemes.”