Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #175: Will Deportations Drive Up Grocery Bills?

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Episode #175: Will Deportations Drive Up Grocery Bills? · Beyond Labels Premium

0:00
SPEAKER_01: We're definitely seeing a movement in the country of kind of moving to an alternative provenance, which is exciting, which is really good.
0:09
SPEAKER_01: Then the question is, can all of us that are in this space can we, you know, can we adjust fast enough?
0:14
SPEAKER_01: You know, can we can we scale?
0:16
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we I know at our farm we're talking about 30% increase this year, trying to, you know, trying to handle it because it it really seen it caught us flat-footed.
0:25
SPEAKER_01: And we we try to keep our finger on the pulse of things and you know, kind of we talk to talk to other folks like us and try to see what's going on.
0:33
SPEAKER_01: But uh, but I'll tell you this this late season from from the election on, it really kind of caught us a lot of us flat-footed.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: Hi, and welcome to another episode of Beyond Labels.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: Stina McKella, and I'm here with our favorite farmer, Joel Salatin.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: And today, Joel is hopefully going to put us at ease.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: There's been a lot of concern about another potential food shortage.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: So, Joel, why don't you give us an update on where is this concern coming from?
1:03
SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, uh yeah, this this really came to our attention um in I don't know, early December, you know, a month after the election.
1:14
SPEAKER_01: And as the rhetoric for deporting illegals um ratcheted up in the Trump transition team.
1:20
SPEAKER_01: And our um Wendy, my you know, our kind of our polyface publicist, their our our our face of polyface, the lady that answers the phone all the time, she called me one day.
1:31
SPEAKER_01: She says, Joel, the phones are blowing up.
1:33
SPEAKER_01: I said, Wow, what's what's up, Wendy?
1:35
SPEAKER_01: And she said, Everybody's um wanting to know if they need to come out and stock up on food because we're gonna run out of food.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: I said, Well, why is that?
1:45
SPEAKER_01: Well, she said, because um Trump's gonna deport all the illegals and then there won't be anybody to pick tomatoes and gut chickens.
1:52
SPEAKER_01: And so there's not gonna be any food.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: And uh, and so you know, it's it's one of these things, you not in my wildest uh imagination would I would I you know imagine that a policy like that would create panic in the consumer mindset, you know, that there's not going to be any food.
2:18
SPEAKER_01: And of course, um in in a in a bit of a sarcastic way, I said, well, well just just tell them, just tell them that uh that's okay.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: Once Elon and Vivek eliminate a million federal employees, they can go pick tomatoes and gut chickens, um, you know, uh and do something useful for a change.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: And so uh so you know it it struck me, uh Cena, of the well, first of all, the fear, uh generally, just just general fear, how easy it is to become fearful, um in in almost any situation.
2:58
SPEAKER_01: And number two, how how we are being um I don't know, uh TikToked social media, you know, to to this to this um you know, we're not we're not running through the streets, but we're we're we're emotionally and mentally running through the streets.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: And and um it's it's disheartening to see people that uh paranoid about you know where uh uh about something as basic as as food.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: And so um, you know, I I don't know, I don't know what to do about it, uh, except that that you know, uh trust me, um before there is no food, uh there's gonna be a lot of changes.
3:50
SPEAKER_01: You know, I I I think in general, um food's one of the last things that's going to be in jeopardy where regardless, you know, when the wheel wheels fall off.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: No, you know, we saw it, and and I think one of the reasons people are concerned is because we're just four years away from a manufactured shortage in 2020 when COVID came and the great big processors couldn't um you know couldn't uh uh adhere to compliance to to you know worker compliance fast enough.
4:24
SPEAKER_01: And that certainly created a you know a big problem.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: But uh today, you know, that's still fresh on people's minds.
4:34
SPEAKER_01: And so I know in my lifetime I never saw grocery stores that grocery store shelves that closed or that that um you know that bear.
4:45
SPEAKER_01: And so that's still fresh on people's minds.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: And I think that ratchets up any little bobble like this, it ratchets it up into a new, a new place.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, then I think you add in the bird flu that's happening, where now we're having a hard time even getting eggs.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, we were at the grocery store the other day looking for something else, and we happened to go down the egg aisle, and there were no um eggs there.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: There were no organic eggs that available to buy.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: And were there regular eggs?
5:17
SPEAKER_00: There were some regular eggs, but not many.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: So there's it's that's alarming, right?
5:24
SPEAKER_00: Like you said, that's a reminder of what we just went through and a reminder of how fragile some aspects of our food supply really are when you when you don't raise your own, right?
5:36
SPEAKER_00: When you don't, when you're not self-sufficient, you are dependent on them.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: And so when you walk into the grocery store and you're already seeing, oh, all these eggs are gone, um, it is going to kind of trigger it's a little bit of PTSD, right?
5:47
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I guess we're going through it again.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: And then, I mean, you hear about all the chickens being killed from the bird flu.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: And then now we're having a hard time getting chickens.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, like there's a local farm here that has that sells chickens, and you can only buy one chicken.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: So, like you could you buy from them like once a month, you know, you go pick up your food from a drop-off location, and now it's being rationed where you can only have one chicken, like one chicken a month.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: And then, I mean, Joel, are you seeing any of this?
6:16
SPEAKER_01: Is is this uh just one chicken?
6:18
SPEAKER_01: Is this to eat?
6:19
SPEAKER_01: This is one chicken to eat, not not an egg.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're not buying the the you know, the living chicken.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: This is one chicken that I'm gonna purchase to eat.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: They're only allowing us to buy one a month.
6:32
SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
6:35
SPEAKER_01: So so so what we've seen, um and and we've had a uh may I say we've had a bit of a run on things.
6:45
SPEAKER_01: We're out of a lot of things.
6:47
SPEAKER_01: Uh would I mean we're early.
6:50
SPEAKER_01: Um we're we're we're taping this on January 2nd.
6:53
SPEAKER_01: So we're we're early, you know, our season here in Virginia, our quote unquote, you know, production season kind of ends by Thanksgiving.
7:03
SPEAKER_01: All right.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: So and and then we're and then we're at full bore cranked up again by you know by mid-May, all right.
7:10
SPEAKER_01: So my point is that we're only roughly two months into our normal kind of you know, five or six month uh um inventory period.
7:21
SPEAKER_01: In other words, we try to stock stuff so that we have things, you know, throughout this five to six month down downtime.
7:29
SPEAKER_01: And we're only a couple of months into that.
7:31
SPEAKER_01: So to be to be this short of everything, I mean we ran out of ground beef, we ran out of uh pork sausage, uh, we ran out of uh chickens, um, and and we've never uh we've never seen anything like this before.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: And so I think there's um you know there are several things happening that are um you know that are an issue.
7:54
SPEAKER_01: I see a confluence of several things happening.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: And one is the whole the whole Maha movement.
8:03
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, RFK Jr.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: Maha Make America Healthy Again.
8:09
SPEAKER_01: And that is creating a um, you know, a desire of people, anything related to wellness, wellness, whether it's alternative treatments, uh alternative food, um, alternative investing, uh, alternative recreation, um uh alternative education.
8:31
SPEAKER_01: Uh you have all these uh things that people are are are are pursuing, I think, as this you know this um elevation has happened.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: And I think there is a new awareness in the population, like suddenly even Wall Street Journal is carrying stories of how you know a tenth of the SNAP budget is um goes to uh soft drinks.
9:04
SPEAKER_01: And I think the average American I didn't I didn't know that a year ago, but the whole maha message, what RFK Jr.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: has brought, uh that whole message has elevated all that discussion to a new level.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: And it's just it's just got you know, it's got people talking.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: Um and so you know that's a little bit of it.
9:26
SPEAKER_01: Um another one is that there are there are lots of of more and more mistrust and concerns about industrial food.
9:41
SPEAKER_01: Uh again, partly because of the Maha movement, uh, but but also just because of the brazenness of the industrial sector.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, the World Economic Forum, the Bilderbergers, the, and I don't want to start into a conspiracy rabbit hole, but but when you start seeing you know the uh the agenda of artificial intelligence, AI, and and and and all of this, people start getting uneasy about this.
10:13
SPEAKER_01: You know, control, um control from afar and and security and all those kinds of things, they start getting concerned about it.
10:22
SPEAKER_01: And so people are looking at you know increasing their you know, their pantry, if you will.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: In fact, we we did a new t-shirt here.
10:32
SPEAKER_01: Um Hannah, our our um urban drop point guru, uh came up with a brand new it's it was so clever.
10:39
SPEAKER_01: It was it's one of those things that was so clever.
10:42
SPEAKER_01: Uh the only thing I didn't like about it was that I didn't think of it, you know.
10:45
SPEAKER_01: But um, but it's it's it's a pantry instead of a patriot, a patriot.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: That's a that's a patriot pantry, you know, a person who understands the value of a pantry and and um you know and and having a stock, having a stock of food.
10:59
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, you're not going to the grocery store, you know, every week.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: Um you're you're actually stocking up, you're you're actually running um things.
11:09
SPEAKER_01: And so all these things, I think, and and and bird flu.
11:13
SPEAKER_01: Uh bird flu is certainly on people's minds.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: And if I may if I may get on a soapbox for a minute on bird flu, you know, um those of us in the you know, you know, in the non-industrial movement would like to think that the only birds susceptible to this are, you know, Tyson's birds and Cargill's birds and Purdue's birds.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: But the truth is that there are that at least some of the some of the worst housing conditions that I've seen in the country are in backyard flocks.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: They're not at Tyson, they're not at Cargill.
11:52
SPEAKER_01: And um so so what a chicken needs what a chicken needs is to be dry.
12:02
SPEAKER_01: Um that's number one, you know, chickens don't like to be wet.
12:08
SPEAKER_01: They don't like wind, they don't like breeze.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, they don't have a they don't have a hide on them.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: If you if you look at the difference between a cow and a chicken, you know, in a in a wind, um the chicken's feathers are you know blowing everywhere.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: It's like the it's like the wind actually just comes in right under her feathers.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: Whereas a cow, you know, you got that big old heavy hide and all that hair, and you know, it doesn't even ripple, you know, nothing moves, it just kind of it just kind of stays there as a jacket.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: Um chickens don't have a jacket, so they don't like wind.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: They don't like draft.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: And then they don't like to be dirty.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: They they they're pretty they're pretty fastidious, they're pretty clean.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, if you look at them, you know, preening and all that, you know, they're they're they're pretty fastidious.
12:52
SPEAKER_01: Uh they don't like to be dirty and they don't live a long time.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: Uh they you know they have a fairly short, you know, much shorter than a dog um lifespan and a cat.
13:04
SPEAKER_01: And so so when you when you look at these things, wet draft, that's what I'm calling breeze, wet, draft, dirty, and old, that sums up a lot of backyard flocks.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: Uh because you know, they're they're out on some, especially this time of year in the winter, you know, a cold, wet, dirty.
13:24
SPEAKER_01: Uh I was driving into town two days ago, you know, and went by one little homestead situation here between us and town.
13:31
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, there was the backyard flock of chickens, you know, probably 20 or so.
13:35
SPEAKER_01: And they had a little, you know, a little range area there.
13:39
SPEAKER_01: And uh it was nothing but mud, dirt, you know, those chickens, and and they're they're cold, uh, it's drafty, the coop isn't very tight, and they're wet.
13:50
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times, you know, backyard flocks, people keep them till they're real old, uh, you know, four, five, six, seven years old.
13:59
SPEAKER_01: And then they get, you know, then they get susceptible to things, just like, you know, geriatric chickens, geriatric people, geriatric whatever.
14:07
SPEAKER_01: And so, um, so then of course you have the whole, you know, the whole have the whole commercial flock problem with bird flu, and and then you you know go into the store and there's no eggs, and um you know uh it it gets it gets people paranoid.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: So um I I yeah, we're we're definitely seeing a um a movement uh in the in the country of um of kind of moving to an alternative provenance, which is exciting, which is really good.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: Um then the question is, can all of us that are in this space can we, you know, can we adjust fast enough?
14:52
SPEAKER_01: You know, can we can we scale?
14:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're I know at our farm we're talking about, you know, uh 30% increase this year trying to, you know, trying to handle it because it it really, Cena, it caught us flat-footed, and we we try to keep our finger on the pulse of things and you know, kind of we talk to talk to other folks like us and try to see what's going on.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: But uh, but I'll tell you this this late season from from the election on, um it it it really kind of caught us a lot of us flat-footed.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so now there's gonna be a you know a supply and demand issue.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: So but if we go back to so the some of the fear is um, we know we already have kind of looks like this foundation now of fear that's been built into us from what we've been experiencing the past several years, and this awareness about how fragile the food supply is.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: And um, and this is really one of one of the foundational principles of what you need to feel safe, right?
15:55
SPEAKER_00: You need to know that you have food, like food, shelter, water.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: So this is one of the pillars of safety.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: So um it does drum up uh like this um you know reptilian fear that's inside of us, right?
16:11
SPEAKER_00: So um so the concern is that they're saying that okay, if Trump gets in there and he deports all of these illegal immigrants, that there won't be anybody there to manually like harvest the crops, right?
16:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, or you know, kill the chickens.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: Um so let's I wanted to get your take on that because I've been kind of brainstorming about it.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: Like what could possibly happen with our economy and the food supply if that is the case?
16:45
SPEAKER_00: If he's just like, okay, everybody out, like you know, just takes them all back out of the country.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I was kind of going down two different paths.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you want to kind of chime in with me.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, one path would be okay, so if all of a sudden there were no illegal immigrants left, specifically for the food supply, right?
17:07
SPEAKER_00: So what would happen?
17:08
SPEAKER_00: I think there's maybe two main paths that these large industrial companies could take.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: Specifically, I'm talking about them since they hire the majority of the illegals.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: So the one path would be, okay, let's keep the methodology the same, meaning let's still rely on manual labor.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so in this is case one.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: And then the second scenario I want to go through with you is what if they decide to change the methodology?
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so in the first, in this first hypothetical situation, we're keeping the methodology the same.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna keep reliant on manual labor.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but now our manual labor is gone.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: So the so American workers are gonna have to come in and take those jobs.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like the wages are too low that they pay the immigrants, that American workers probably will not be willing to take those jobs for those wages.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: Of course, you know, this is completely me speculating here.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: All right.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: But we see this happening even with you know the minimum wage jobs where they won't take the jobs.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: Like there's a big thing in California, they wouldn't take the jobs.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: So the people, the companies had to raise the wages until like the teenagers were willing to take those minimal wage jobs.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: So so if you follow along this logic, the they're gonna have to increase the wages, right, for Americans to take those jobs.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: That increase in wages will increase the cost for those companies, right?
18:38
SPEAKER_00: For those large industrial food companies.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: So then they have to decide what they're gonna do with that increase in the cost.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: They could choose to decrease their profit margin, right?
18:48
SPEAKER_00: The company could absorb the cost, but I kind of doubt they're gonna take all of that on themselves, right?
18:55
SPEAKER_00: We've seen Yeah.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: Well, I can I can I can assure you that the profit margin has almost no wiggle room.
19:01
SPEAKER_01: These these companies, they are um their their margins are are extremely low.
19:07
SPEAKER_01: Now I know some people will get their backs up on this, say, oh, they make all this money.
19:12
SPEAKER_01: Uh but the I mean, but but they're turning millions and millions and millions of of pounds of product.
19:19
SPEAKER_01: So the margin per the margin per one.
19:23
SPEAKER_01: Um let me let me let me let me tell you a story about margins.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: You just you know years ago when Michael Pollan wrote um Power Steer for the New York Times and really launched the grass-finished beef into the public consciousness.
19:39
SPEAKER_01: Um McDonald's actually, you know, saw the things.
19:43
SPEAKER_01: Hey, this maybe this is a new trend.
19:44
SPEAKER_01: And so they looked around.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: Where do you get grass-finished beef?
19:47
SPEAKER_01: You know, well, at that time we were one of the only games in town, so they stumbled onto us pretty quickly.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: And um, they looked at some of the things that I'd written uh about McDonald's, and they were kind of uh concerned about coming for a visit.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: So they had their uh they had their attorney in uh DC uh who was on retainer.
20:08
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he's a full-time, you know, uh uh McDonald's uh attorney who handles their legal issues in in DC.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: They called him.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: He was you know he was three hours away in D.C.
20:19
SPEAKER_01: from us.
20:19
SPEAKER_01: They said, hey, go down and check out this guy and see if he'll, you know, if we could come and visit, if he'd uh be nice to us or you know, string us up.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: And uh so this guy, this guy, the attorney, came out and we spent half a day together, walked around the place, had a nice discussion, and uh lots of interesting things.
20:38
SPEAKER_01: But one of the interesting things from that discussion was he told me that they had a test kitchen uh where the the crew comes in every day and they just change their furniture.
20:48
SPEAKER_01: That's what they call everything in the restaurant, you know, from the deep fat fryer to the cash register to the tables, chairs, furniture.
20:55
SPEAKER_01: It's all furniture, okay?
20:56
SPEAKER_01: The the the the walk-in cooler, uh everything is furniture.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: And what this crew does is every day they um they they switch around the they make changes in the furniture.
21:10
SPEAKER_01: Uh they might they might make a circle where there was a straight line, there might make a an arc where there was a straight line, or a straight line where there was an arc, or they might move the cash register two inches, they might make change the deep fat fryer, you know, a couple of inches, they might, uh you with me?
21:26
SPEAKER_01: You know the counters, all this stuff.
21:28
SPEAKER_01: And he said, if we can take one second and he do time and motion studies.
21:36
SPEAKER_01: So they make a change and they run, you know, run the run the stuff through and they do time in motion studies.
21:42
SPEAKER_01: He says, if we can figure out a way to to take one routine procedure, I mean, this not a not not a uh you know, a once in a while, but but a routine procedure that that every and take one second off of it, one second off of a routine procedure.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: That's worth 10 million dollars to us.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: And I've never, I've never forgotten.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was just, what's what's the word they use now?
22:11
SPEAKER_01: You know, gobsmacked, you know.
22:14
SPEAKER_01: I was just uh I it was just one of those things that, and he said it so matter-of-factly, like, you know, you poor dumb idiot.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: Don't you know, you know, how we do things here?
22:24
SPEAKER_00: And and um and well, one second, I mean, I don't even think about a second.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: No, that's not nowhere in my calculation for my day of what can I do in one second.
22:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's right.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
22:38
SPEAKER_01: But you take that second and you you multiply it over, you know, procedures, uh, thousands and thousands of of repetitions.
22:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, across the world.
22:49
SPEAKER_01: Across the world, yeah, and it adds up to a to a big deal.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: And so that's how tight the margins are on a lot of these um companies.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: That the margins are very, very low, but the volume, the volume, even at low, I mean, I mean, uh a Tyson chicken farmer, you know, his margin on a chicken might only be um, you know, what a dime, okay?
23:12
SPEAKER_01: A dime of chicken.
23:13
SPEAKER_01: But if you're raising a million chickens, you know, that's a hundred thousand dollars.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: Okay, wow.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you're saying then, like pretty much across the food supply um sector, there's not a great profit margin.
23:29
SPEAKER_01: This is this is why Kamala was completely out to lunch when she was talking about you know, these grocery stores gouging people, you know, blah, blah, blah.
23:37
SPEAKER_01: Listen, grocery stores run on about a one and a half percent margin.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: Kroger's, piggly, wigglies, bilos, they run on about a one and a half percent margin.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Apple, Apple runs on like a 40% margin, okay?
23:50
SPEAKER_01: Um so uh Apple computers, not Apple Orchards.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, sounds like we need to get in the Apple business.
23:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
23:59
SPEAKER_01: So so the you know, Silicon Valley, the the the big, you know, the big cheeses, Facebook and and all these, um, they actually run on on very fairly high margins.
24:11
SPEAKER_01: But the but but in the food, it's it's a extremely, extremely low margin business because it's you know it's it's so competitive, and people are way more concerned about paying an extra penny for an Apple than they are paying an extra$200 for an Apple computer.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: Yes, which that's a whole nother conversation that we should go to at some point as well, because that's fascinating.
24:36
SPEAKER_01: I just wanted to jump in on, but you just so your your point is that there, I mean, my point too is that there's not a lot of wiggle room in that in that wage sphere.
24:46
SPEAKER_01: But you go ahead, because I've I've got a I've got a good response to to where you're headed here.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay, wait, and just one quick follow-up question, if I may, um, because I didn't know that about the profit margin in the food sector versus like Silicon Valley.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, when you read these articles and you hear about people talking about this pay discrepancy between like CEOs and the average worker at the company, you're saying so that just pay discrepancy does exist, but only in certain sectors.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: And it's like Silicon Valley, for instance, but it's not that pay discrepancy you're saying isn't existing in the food supply.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: Or you're saying that there isn't that discrepancy.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, pay pay discrepancy absolutely exists.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: The the uh Tyson CEO um makes uh you know, whatever it is, a thousand times more than uh than a chicken line worker.
25:35
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
25:35
SPEAKER_01: Um so pay but pay discrepancy is not margin.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: So that's where I was gonna go with you next is that I want to make sure I understood clearly where you're coming from, because then my thought is okay, um, if they don't have the profit margin for the you know, in that in that wiggle room, then I'm thinking either the guy at the top, he's gonna have to take a cut, right?
26:03
SPEAKER_01: Or oh, we can't have that.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm like that's what I'm saying.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, uh, I don't think they're gonna vote for that, right?
26:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, or or and or the cost is gonna get passed down to the consumer and we'll get inflation, even more inflation on the food.
26:20
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so so where am I wrong?
26:22
SPEAKER_01: So you're not you're not wrong at all.
26:25
SPEAKER_01: But I I wanna I want to add a complimentary thread of thought, and that is as I've been analyzing all of this, um, and especially since Trump's gotten elected and and all the different little things that he's talked about doing, um what I've realized is that it's very, very difficult to attack to deal with one aspect, I mean, I could just say of life, but but but of of of policy.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's very difficult to deal with one little item of policy and not have a ripple to a bunch of other levels of policy.
27:05
SPEAKER_01: And that means so if I if I go after this, like like we're talking about the the illegals here, if we go after that, then we have options.
27:15
SPEAKER_01: We have, okay, you've got to pay more, which means the food will cost more.
27:21
SPEAKER_01: But there's an there's another there's another um uh item on that, and that is if in conjunction with getting rid of the illegals, we also shut down welfare, now suddenly and and you know, I'm uh I I know people are gonna jump on this and well he doesn't want to help anybody.
27:45
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm I'm uh but you and I both know that there is an there there are now people uh who are generations just taking welfare that that are that are able-bodied that could work.
28:04
SPEAKER_01: I mean you can you can go down anyway, I I won't I won't go beyond that.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: Just just that the the number of people that are taking transfer payments uh who are able-bodied and could work are tons.
28:20
SPEAKER_01: And and goodness, we have, you know, look at look at the policies we have.
28:25
SPEAKER_01: I mean, she's got an email yesterday from a lady who you know who is on SSI.
28:30
SPEAKER_01: Um she wants to work, but she can't because her SSI benefits would eliminate if she even got any income coming in, then they'd cut off her SSI and she's got disabilities and all sorts of issues.
28:43
SPEAKER_01: So we got all of these things that that that um that incentivize people not to have to work.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: And of course, you know, for me as a as a true, you know, I'm a true um small government libertarian, uh, I'd be happy to see all transfer payments uh eliminated.
29:06
SPEAKER_01: And oh, people will die.
29:08
SPEAKER_01: No, people didn't die before now.
29:10
SPEAKER_01: Filling, you know, if if you don't tax people, they got more money and they can they can help a neighbor, they can help a person, they can, you know, it's states can do it, uh, whatever.
29:18
SPEAKER_01: But my point is that um that when people say, well, Americans won't do the work, in my view, it's only because Americans, there are so many Americans on the public dole that they're not, they don't have to do the work.
29:35
SPEAKER_01: And um and and and and and the the other another option is that you didn't mention was that you can change the work environment to where um to where it's a more enjoyable place to work.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh goodness, these these uh poultry pro I mean we're in the heart of poultry processing plants here in Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley and the Del Marva Peninsula uh of Virginia.
30:05
SPEAKER_01: This is this is the you know the the poultry capital mecca of industrial poultry in the world.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: And uh, and I mean the the stories of people, for example, wetting themselves wetting themselves on the line because they can't take but one break every so many hours.
30:24
SPEAKER_01: And and um, you know, it's just it it's it's really deplorable.
30:31
SPEAKER_01: You know, in my in my view, and and then you've got you know carpal tunnel syndrome, you've got repetitive motion sickness.
30:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean, in Virginia, in Virginia, the poultry industry was bankrupting our uh Virginia um workmen's compensation program years and years.
30:47
SPEAKER_01: This is a couple decades ago, it was bankrupting the workman's comp program because all the poultry workers were getting uh repetitive motion, you know, um carpal tunnel in their hands because you know they just stand there all eight hours a day and do one little motion, you know, all day, every day, all day, every day.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: But your body can't take that.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: You know, your your tendons, your your stuff, you can't take that.
31:08
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, um, so of course they go into workman's comp and and it was bankrupting the system.
31:14
SPEAKER_01: So what did Virginia General Assembly do?
31:16
SPEAKER_01: Well, they just passed uh they just made change to regulation that from now on uh poultry processing carpal tunnel syndrome would not be a worker uh illness.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: Would not be a worker, would not be a worker injury, and they just wrote it off.
31:30
SPEAKER_01: And so suddenly the poultry industry was given this massive um um concession.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: Uh they didn't have to pay into the workman's comp thing anymore because their worker injuries were not um you know, were not classified as a worker injury.
31:47
SPEAKER_01: So now when a person gets carpal tunnel, they just uh they just fire them or get rid of them, or the person changes to another, you know, to something that's different, and it's not even in the poultry processing end, it's not even considered a worker injury.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: So you know, yeah.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: That's very upsetting.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: It is very upsetting.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: And see, uh I mean, Americans aren't gonna step in and do the job like that.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're gonna have to pay them a lot more, you're gonna have to change those working conditions.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: Like it's gonna the bottom line is it's gonna cost more money.
32:19
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
32:20
SPEAKER_01: But you know what you have to do, yes, what you have to do too, is you have to be creative.
32:25
SPEAKER_01: You have to be creative about about where you put people and how you move them around.
32:30
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
32:30
SPEAKER_01: So like here, like here at Polyface, you know, we butcher a lot of chickens here, but nobody works on works on the line, if you will, more than about, you know, three hours at a time.
32:43
SPEAKER_01: And then we then we uh we go make hay, we uh build a build a barn, we you know, whatever, pick up firewood, we you know, chop thistles.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you the the point is that you you have not only cross-training, but you have you know cross work going on.
33:05
SPEAKER_01: And in in listen, in my dream world, in my dream world, we'd have we'd have um uh farmers, processors, and the restaurateurs, we would have them rotate.
33:22
SPEAKER_01: So imagine if one week you're a farmer, one week you work in the processing, and one week you work at the restaurant, and and you have this three-week rotation where you rotate from one to the other, and now you're using completely different muscles.
33:38
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you're inside, sometimes you're outside.
33:41
SPEAKER_01: You can appreciate the entire chain, the whole, the whole thing.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: You don't just sit there and see one drumstick tendon in front of you.
33:50
SPEAKER_01: You know, the average Cena, the average poultry worker in the US, the average poultry line worker can learn all they need to know about their job in 20 minutes.
34:04
SPEAKER_01: Now you think you think how um human-affirming it is to know that what you spend all of your your your your whatever productive work time doing, eight hours a day, five days a week, that can be learned in 20 minutes.
34:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:28
SPEAKER_01: For life?
34:29
SPEAKER_01: Really?
34:30
SPEAKER_01: But it but if but if you throw in, well, you know, you can work on a farm for a week, you can work in a restaurant for a week, you can, you know, you can um you can work in the shop keeping the trucks lubed and flip out of transmission.
34:43
SPEAKER_01: I mean, imagine if if you could move these, you know, folks around to different things.
34:49
SPEAKER_01: So you had cross-training, different skill sets, different muscle uses, different, you know, different work environments.
34:56
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I know uh this is dream world, okay?
35:01
SPEAKER_01: But but aren't we at a time, I mean, crisis or and and catastrophe and like you know, end of the road, that's what stimulates creativity and innovation and and and you know going to new things.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: And so um, so if if this quote unquote problem, if this problem, um, starting with the illegal issue and Trump deports them, um if that stimulated hunger for creativity, it would it would be a it would be a catalyst for you know a lot of different things.
35:42
SPEAKER_01: There there I think there are a lot of different options, but um, but we've we've just never had to we've just never had to be creative before.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm so glad that you steer the conversation in this direction because that's the second path that I was laying out.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Like path A is keep with the same old, same old using manual labor.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: Path B is to use innovation.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: And so there's even some people talking about how we may be like entering into an innovation boom, right?
36:13
SPEAKER_00: That could set us apart as leaders again.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, and this could be like because there's thought that there's this kind of pent-up innovation potential, like in particular like the manufacturing space, the food space, because for roughly about 50 years or around there, we've been relying on cheap labor, right?
36:34
SPEAKER_00: Illegal immigrants, we've been outsourcing to China, having factories out there.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: So we've gone this cheap route of staying the status quo, staying with the manual labor versus using our creativity and actually innovating.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: So I just saw this thing about Elon Musk, how his one of his latest projects is he's now viewing his factories as products themselves.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: And so he is now focusing on upgrading the technology, right, to upgrade this product that he is now going to market.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: So he'll upgrade the technology with the intention of eventually selling it to other companies, right?
37:14
SPEAKER_00: So the focus is now on let's try to innovate.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: So maybe instead of having manual labor in these implorable, like horrible conditions, maybe they'll start automating, right?
37:27
SPEAKER_00: And that would that would over time lower the cost.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: That would increase demand for other jobs like technicians and engineers, right?
37:36
SPEAKER_00: So we would now be creating like, oh, you're smiling at me.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: Do you disagree?
37:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm I'm I'm with you.
37:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm with you on innovation.
37:46
SPEAKER_01: The problem is that animals are not uh are not machines, and and every every chicken uh is not identical to the other.
37:55
SPEAKER_01: And so where where, for example, in the industry right now, they have a tremendous amount of mechanization.
38:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they gut chickens mechanically, okay.
38:06
SPEAKER_01: But the problem is the problem is that that mechanical breaks a lot of the guts.
38:14
SPEAKER_01: It it it's not as it you can't do it with the finesse that you can with a human hand.
38:22
SPEAKER_01: And so it breaks a lot of the intestines, and then all that breaks out over the bird, and now you've got all this fecal contamination on the on the bird carcass.
38:31
SPEAKER_01: So so so I I listen, I'm all for you know uh innovation, technological advancement, whatever.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, animals are different sizes, they're different weights, they you know, they have the it it's not it's not a car bearing, it's not a windshield, it's a it's a um the the the biological realm is is full of um of the differences, you know, from one to the other.
39:05
SPEAKER_01: And so so the mechanization becomes very, very difficult.
39:09
SPEAKER_01: But you know, um I I watched um I mean I watched a robotic uh tomato sorter in the Netherlands.
39:16
SPEAKER_01: Um that that you know this this they said that this half million dollar machine uh was replacing, you know, a couple of workers.
39:24
SPEAKER_01: And um and you know, it was it was pretty it was pretty remarkable, but you know, it was it was sorting and grading um using you know using um light light measurement, you know, tomatoes, large, medium, small, and and putting five on a plate, um, you know, that kind of thing, which you know, is um is is fairly technical, but not as technical as trying to make sure that you um get the fragile intestines out of a chicken without breaking them up.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: Well, I certainly don't think the current technology we have is capable of doing that.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: But you know, that's where that creative innovative side comes in.
40:10
SPEAKER_00: If there's a need for it, then we'll shift our focus, right?
40:14
SPEAKER_00: And um and put those engineers to work.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: And like, let's see what Musk comes up with.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: Because you can only raise the price of the food so much before you price people out, right?
40:25
SPEAKER_00: Like they're gonna people, I know people who, myself included, are already starting to choose one food over the next, like as prices are going up, or like, okay, well, like the price of avocados here uh is really high.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: And so now I'm like, well, okay, I'm not gonna eat as many avocados this week.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna choose something else.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: So a lot of us are already making these choices, and you will price people out.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: Like if if they make all these, if if the cheap labor goes away and they replace it with American workers, they have to increase the wages and they have to figure out what they're gonna do, they can't pass all the cost on to the consumer because they will price us out.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: So that's what I'm saying.
41:04
SPEAKER_00: Like, I think there could be, depending on how how Trump handles it, if you know, if he does deport him, there could be some real pain in the transitional period.
41:13
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: And then people need the innovators to step in.
41:18
SPEAKER_00: Right.
41:19
SPEAKER_00: But but pain good comes out of pain.
41:21
SPEAKER_01: That is pain, pain is the precursor of creative solutions.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like you and I both don't like the food supply the way it is.
41:31
SPEAKER_00: Like we don't like the quality of it, you know, we don't like the destruction to the the world that it's doing, like the earth and the worms and the insects.
41:39
SPEAKER_00: We don't like the how they're treating the workers.
41:41
SPEAKER_00: So for me, I'm like, in a lot of ways, I'm like, bring it on.
41:45
SPEAKER_00: Like this is gonna be a good thing to cause such a disruption that we can change it to something that is hopefully more sustainable and to all of our higher good.
41:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
41:55
SPEAKER_01: The other the other path, I think there's another there's another uh path.
41:59
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate your your first two.
42:01
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm gonna offer a third path here.
42:03
SPEAKER_01: The third path is to quit growing them domestically, and so then so what you have then is you have Tyson moving offshore.
42:11
SPEAKER_01: And and so I think if we could back up a little bit to a historical context, agriculture has always been the most conservative thread of any economy.
42:26
SPEAKER_01: Agriculture is always the last to change, um probably partly because farmers tend to be conservative, um people don't want to mess with their food.
42:38
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
42:38
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, um what I'm getting at is that that agriculture uh throughout history, whatever, whatever technology happens, it starts in the urban sector.
42:54
SPEAKER_01: That's where you see the technology develop in the urban sector, and it takes a long time before it actually gets out to the to the rural.
43:03
SPEAKER_01: And and that that's a that's a normal.
43:05
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we see it right now with Wi-Fi.
43:07
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I mean, our farm, we have struggled and struggled, and we're still struggling.
43:12
SPEAKER_01: You know, with Wi-Fi, uh, you know, a cell phone, a cell phone doesn't work in our house.
43:18
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I mean, we just had a we we so you know, so we still have a landline.
43:23
SPEAKER_01: Every time it rains, we have no phone.
43:26
SPEAKER_01: And so finally Verizon came out last week and um and worked on it after you know every little rain we had all fall.
43:34
SPEAKER_01: You know, we didn't have a phone until the sun came out for two days and dried things out.
43:38
SPEAKER_01: Well, he he said, Well, uh a mouse crawled up in our pedestal down the road there, and and uh the mouse picked your wire to chew.
43:46
SPEAKER_01: And that's why you don't have any phone when the you know when the uh rain comes.
43:51
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we're still we're still you know dealing with that.
43:54
SPEAKER_01: And we saw it with rural electrification, we saw it, you know, we've seen it now with Wi Fi.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: We see these things.
44:01
SPEAKER_01: Um and and so so my point is that as manufacturing in the in the 70s and 80s in this country, I mean the the rust belt, the reason we have a rust belt is because all that manufacturing went offshore, went to China and Thailand, Vietnam, right?
44:26
SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh, think about North Carolina and South Carolina textile mills, uh, you know, where they used to have these huge, you know, uh textile mills to make you know cotton and fabrics and all this stuff.
44:36
SPEAKER_01: All that's gone to Thailand, Vietnam.
44:39
SPEAKER_01: So um the point is we had the offshoring of manufacturing in the manufacturing sector, and and now in the last 10 years, we're seeing the offshoring of agriculture to where now 20% of all American food, 20% of all the food that Americans eat is now uh foreign produced.
45:07
SPEAKER_01: It's imported.
45:08
SPEAKER_01: 20%.
45:09
SPEAKER_01: That's that's never been in our in our nation's history.
45:12
SPEAKER_01: We've never even come close to that, and that's climbing rapidly.
45:16
SPEAKER_01: Uh and so the other thread of this, I mean, I've been down through Mexico.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you just see you just see factory chicken houses have one after another after another down through the desert of Mexico that are American companies that are moving, you know, there um where they don't have the environmental regulations, they don't have the labor regulations, they don't have the workmen's compensation regulations, they don't have all these things.
45:41
SPEAKER_01: And and and and so that this is where Trump, so so now you have the other, you know, we we had we had the peel of welfare, well then you have the peel of tariffs, okay?
45:52
SPEAKER_01: And and this is where Trump, you know, it's it's a it's a tension, all right.
45:56
SPEAKER_01: So you get rid of the illegals, and then the the ag sector, the food sector wants to move offshore.
46:03
SPEAKER_01: Well, so then you tack on a tariff to make them have to compete with American labor costs.
46:08
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's what you start seeing is how how interrelated and networked all these things are.
46:14
SPEAKER_01: You can't just you can't just go out and and and cherry pick a thing and um and not have it have reverberations, you know, ripples throughout all these all these spaces, not the least of which is what's important to spend money on.
46:32
SPEAKER_01: You know, um maybe you forego uh your you know your your Gucci pocketbook and and shoes purchase this year, and instead you put it into better ribeye steaks and chicken or something.
46:50
SPEAKER_01: You know, those kind of decisions, uh you know, they they they filter down to within the population uh at the individual level as these as these different uh network things uh peel off.
47:03
SPEAKER_01: So I I think I think a third a third one definitely would be you know moving offshore.
47:08
SPEAKER_01: Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, uh these other countries where um uh you know where it's where it's different and and and they and they can import, which is again part of the reason for the the whole tariff discussion then becomes part of that.
47:26
SPEAKER_01: Um and it's all it's all wrapped up.
47:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can see that one coming down to the consumer as well, as far as passing costs down on that one.
47:35
SPEAKER_00: Like, I mean, who's gonna pay for that tariff, you know?
47:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, another thing I was thinking as you were talking is he could like temporarily kind of bolster up um the food supply here by so let's say let's say the cost goes up by to pair the to pay the American workers.
47:58
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, they already are subsidizing a lot of these crops, which clearly I'm not in favor of subsidizing crops, okay?
48:05
SPEAKER_00: But we already have that system in place.
48:07
SPEAKER_00: So they what if they took the money that they were spending on the illegal immigrants through welfare, health, health care costs, and things like that, right?
48:17
SPEAKER_00: Put that into subsidizing the food temporarily until we can, you know, to bring down the cost until there's a more innovative solution, right?
48:25
SPEAKER_01: Like you know, you you you and I, uh Cena, you know, we can sit here in our little um our little cubicles, you know, and we and we can have something something like that that sounds completely reasonable.
48:38
SPEAKER_01: Uh because you know the yeah, the the cost of uh New York, you know, New York hotels uh for these folks is is enormous.
48:47
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's bankrupting New York.
48:49
SPEAKER_01: Um billions of dollars.
48:55
SPEAKER_01: And so um, so yeah, uh a temporary uh a temporary transition, uh, you know, flip flip flip the money from one to the other.
49:04
SPEAKER_01: Um but what we really need to do is just is just um quit spending so much.
49:12
SPEAKER_01: Quit quit sp spending so much and quit taxing so much.
49:17
SPEAKER_01: Um that's where we really need to go.
49:19
SPEAKER_01: But but but yeah, but your your idea uh of trade-off is um is quite fascinating.
49:25
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's interesting that uh right now the total American tax take across the all all American taxes generate about$2 trillion a year to the Federal Treasury.
49:38
SPEAKER_01: $2 trillion a year.
49:40
SPEAKER_01: And Elon and um and Vivek have promised to eliminate$2 trillion from the American from the federal budget.
49:50
SPEAKER_01: So what if they actually accomplished that, we could just eliminate all taxes and we'd be in the same place we are right now, um, and we'd be still be deficit spending.
50:03
SPEAKER_01: But but but economically we'd be still in the same spot we are right now um if we you know by eliminating completely eliminating taxes.
50:14
SPEAKER_01: That's how out of control the the federal budget is.
50:17
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's it's so far ahead of the of the uh tax uh the tax take.
50:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's way out of control.
50:26
SPEAKER_00: That's why like I didn't even want to even vocalize that swapping option, but I was like, well, you need some kind of transition, right?
50:35
SPEAKER_00: But yes, when you just said, oh yeah, we can get rid of all taxes, I literally got butterflies in my stomach.
50:41
SPEAKER_00: I was like, what would I do with that money?
50:43
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, like I could finally get my orchard up and running, and you know what I mean?
50:48
SPEAKER_00: Like so many great things you could do with it.
50:51
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly right.
50:53
SPEAKER_00: Of course, you and I are not big spenders, though.
50:55
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, no, we're not big spenders.
50:59
SPEAKER_01: And and and in fact, you know, at our one one of the one of the things that's driving the whole homestead tsunami is to get to where you can live cheaper.
51:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
51:10
SPEAKER_01: Uh and and as food prices go up, let's assume food prices will go up.
51:15
SPEAKER_01: Uh and and I I I think I think it's gonna be a combination of a numerous of these things.
51:21
SPEAKER_01: I think this will drive innovation for sure.
51:24
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but I I think too that um that those sectors I mean did you see you know that uh where McDonald's had that uh that onion that onion uh pathogen, they had that big food recall uh whatever, you know, uh a month and a half ago.
51:46
SPEAKER_01: And I looked at the I looked at the company that had the um what was it, Listeria, salmonella, it was one of those.
51:56
SPEAKER_01: And um it was a Colorado company that supplies the onions to McDonald's.
52:02
SPEAKER_01: And that company, that farm, employs 20,000 people.
52:11
SPEAKER_01: It's it's a vegetable operation.
52:13
SPEAKER_01: On their website, you know, you can you can look at a picture.
52:16
SPEAKER_01: I forget the name of the company now, but um you can look at the look at their website, you've got a got a picture, and it's just you know, hundreds and hundreds of acres of uh onions and uh kale and and things.
52:29
SPEAKER_01: Um and you know, they supply McDonald's, but 20,000 workers.
52:35
SPEAKER_01: And those folks are out there.
52:38
SPEAKER_01: I guarantee you, and and I I am I am not xenophobic uh at all.
52:47
SPEAKER_01: But I guarantee you that there are I I'm not a gambler, but I'd put money on there are a lot of illegals out there in the fields harvesting that and that that's all part of the it's all part of the cheap food, you know, cheap food supply.
53:04
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you don't have to read very far to know the the uh extortion.
53:09
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I just read one about JBS, you know, the big South American, and how they were putting, you know, um, you know, uh 20 people in an apartment with you know one bathroom and uh all this stuff.
53:22
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's yeah, this was in the Wall Street Journal uh lately, a big expose on on uh JBS.
53:28
SPEAKER_01: This is that's beef, of course.
53:30
SPEAKER_01: Um, and and you know, this is this is throughout the food system.
53:33
SPEAKER_01: This isn't unique to chickens, it's not unique to uh beef or or poultry because there is a lot of hand work, uh there is a lot of hand work in um in in food production and processing.
53:43
SPEAKER_01: It just is.
53:45
SPEAKER_01: And um so we'll see, you know, we'll see where this goes.
53:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I don't I think it also highlights just how far removed we are from our food supply that like and and just how much government intervention there has been for so long now in the food supply that has distorted that market because you know the we're we're used to cheap food, like it's all relative terms, but these are cheap, this is cheap food, you know, and and yet when there's thought of okay, we're gonna have to have workers go in there that might actually get a decent wage or you know, get a break to go to the bathroom.
54:27
SPEAKER_00: And so the cost is gonna go up.
54:28
SPEAKER_00: We're like, oh my gosh, there's gonna be no food, like which is a real fear.
54:33
SPEAKER_00: That fear is real, the concern is real and valid.
54:36
SPEAKER_00: But it's just it's crazy to me that the food supply is not only that fragile and that we're all so dependent on it, but it's it's crazy to think that like we can't as families withstand the price of food going to even what maybe it should actually cost, you know what I mean, without it being subsidized, without the workers getting paid so little.
55:03
SPEAKER_00: Like there's a huge disconnect there in my mind.
55:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean, am I am I the only one seeing this, Joel?
55:10
SPEAKER_01: No, no, and and and and realize that 77%, 77% right now of the food Americans eat is ultra-processed.
55:20
SPEAKER_01: 77%.
55:21
SPEAKER_01: So one of the one of the best things people can do to reduce their food costs is buy unprocessed.
55:27
SPEAKER_01: Get a whole chicken, you know, learn to cut it up.
55:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, boneless, skinless breast is, you know, I mean, a whole chicken from us, even at our standards and quality and price, is cheaper than boneless, skinless breast at Walmart.
55:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
55:43
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
55:44
SPEAKER_01: So, so um look, we'll know that people are serious about food costs when every time you walk into the front of a grocery store, there isn't a tractor trailer load of Mountain Dew, Coca-Cola, and Dr.
55:57
SPEAKER_01: Pepper there.
55:58
SPEAKER_01: And you look at the shopping carts of people, and I mean, these these soft drinks are, I mean, that's my new crusade thing.
56:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm just I'm just on a tear about because uh I was on a tear about Taylor Swift concert uh prices.
56:16
SPEAKER_00: Yes, take some of that money, buy some good food for that.
56:21
SPEAKER_00: Like that is kind of crazy.
56:22
SPEAKER_00: I didn't think about that.
56:23
SPEAKER_00: I think I'm hanging out with you too long because now I'm starting to become judgmental because look, I mean, the air, the airs tour, okay.
56:31
SPEAKER_01: The airs tour that brought in whatever, well, you know, billions of dollars, uh, most crazy tour of ever.
56:39
SPEAKER_01: The average, the average C cost was a little over a thousand dollars, average.
56:46
SPEAKER_01: And most of these are are teenagers, they're young, they're you know, they're these these um Swifties, you know, they're not 50-year-old people that maybe have some disposable income that have been saving up, you know, working all their life.
57:00
SPEAKER_01: These are these are kids.
57:01
SPEAKER_00: How are they getting the money?
57:03
SPEAKER_01: Are they charging it?
57:04
SPEAKER_01: Uh mom and dad, uh, you know, yeah, yeah.
57:08
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
57:08
SPEAKER_01: You know, world world revolves around me.
57:11
SPEAKER_01: And uh, so I mean, just think, just think of what, you know, two of those tickets, two of those tickets at over 2,000, at over$2,000, think what that could do to bolster your food budget if you wanted to put that into better food, higher quality food, um, you know, that sort of thing.
57:29
SPEAKER_01: But the most important thing you can do to cut your food cost is to get it from to get it unprocessed and use your kitchen.
57:37
SPEAKER_01: And and and talk about technology.
57:39
SPEAKER_01: We have never had a more techno-sophisticated kitchen.
57:43
SPEAKER_01: And we got drink makers, we got uh ice cream makers, we got you know, instapots, you know, time bake, um, hot and cold water on demand refrigerators.
57:52
SPEAKER_01: I mean, great grandma would have given her eye teeth for the stuff that we've got in our kitchens today.
57:57
SPEAKER_01: Dishwasher.
57:58
SPEAKER_00: That saves me a lot of time.
57:59
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
58:01
SPEAKER_01: Dishwasher.
58:02
SPEAKER_01: And so uh so all this um uh you know, blenders, uh, you know, dicer, slicer, whatever's, you know, uh think of think of spiralizers now.
58:14
SPEAKER_00: Seriously.
58:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
58:15
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
58:16
SPEAKER_01: So we've got all this stuff to um to to work with.
58:19
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if if if food costs, if if all of this pushed people to get in their kitchens more and by bulk, by volume, by in season, and practice their domestic culinary arts, uh, that would be a great outcome.
58:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
58:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think we're about to see really interesting changes occur in the food supply, and we're about to see what's important to people, right?
58:53
SPEAKER_00: I mean, are the techno gadgets and all these other things more important, or are you gonna place importance on food and health?
58:59
SPEAKER_00: And and there's no for me, there's no judgment there.
59:02
SPEAKER_00: It's more of a curiosity.
59:03
SPEAKER_00: Let's see where where it's all gonna, chips are gonna fall.
59:06
SPEAKER_00: Because I think a lot of people will hear these stories as one-offs, and they'll be like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize the food was so bad.
59:12
SPEAKER_00: And then they go out and buy it anyhow, right?
59:14
SPEAKER_00: This cognitive dissonance.
59:16
SPEAKER_00: So let's see how big of an impact Kennedy can have uh, you know, uh on the food supply.
59:23
SPEAKER_00: And what what it really comes down to is what the people are purchasing with their with their dollar.
59:29
SPEAKER_00: So let's see if that actually materializes into a forward movement where we actually do shift the market.
59:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh because I would rather see that.
59:37
SPEAKER_00: I would rather see the market being shifted by the people choosing differently with their dollars than to have any more, you know, policy changes and you know, like just let the people do it themselves.
59:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so good.
59:49
SPEAKER_01: So we're out of time.
59:50
SPEAKER_01: So what do you think about uh just to jump off on that for our question for our our listeners?
59:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, is is um what is one thing that you have done in the last year that that saved you money and got you better that that that was a a strategic decision on your part to to insulate yourself, educate yourself, protect yourself uh from you know from rising food costs.
1:00:21
SPEAKER_01: And um just just one one strategic decision you've made.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, interesting discussion.
1:00:28
SPEAKER_01: Um we don't have all the answers, but we sure don't mind uh running around the horn on them.
1:00:34
SPEAKER_01: And we appreciate all of you being with us for another episode of the Beyond Labels podcast, and we look forward to being with you again next week.