Latest / CattleUSA Daily / 201: Trump’s Comments and the Potential DOJ’s Big Four Investigation with Emma Coffman

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201: Trump’s Comments and the Potential DOJ’s Big Four Investigation with Emma Coffman · CattleUSA Daily

0:00
In today's episode, for the first time, we are welcoming a
0:02
new guest, Emma Kaufman, on to the podcast today.
0:06
Emma is coming on to talk a little bit more about Trump's
0:10
comments on Argentina, his comments about the DOJ and their
0:13
investigation into the big four in the packing industry and what
0:18
that all is going to look like for us as producers as well.
0:22
Emma brings some really great facts and insight in today's
0:26
conversation and really just at the end of it is asking
0:30
producers to do their own research, ask their own
0:33
questions, and don't be afraid to change your mind and opinions
0:36
on what maybe was your mind and opinion for the past few years
0:40
as well. So this is a really great
0:42
conversation and I'm super excited to share it with you all
0:45
today. Emma is just an amazing advocate
0:47
for agriculture and really prides herself on fact based
0:52
findings and advocacy within the industry.
0:55
So she's going to share all about her story and a little bit
0:58
about the DOJ comments and Argentina beef today.
1:02
Without further ado, let's go ahead and hop into this episode
1:05
with Emma. Welcome to the Cattle USA Daily
1:10
podcast, your go to source for the latest livestock markets,
1:14
industry insights and the updates shaping agriculture
1:17
today. I'm your host Lauren Moylan, a
1:19
passionate advocate for agriculture, here to keep you
1:22
informed and connected. Now let's dive into today's
1:25
episode. Emma, welcome to the podcast for
1:35
the first official time. I selfishly am so excited to
1:39
have you on and to be able to chat with you about everything
1:43
that is kind of going on in the world of production agriculture,
1:47
in the beef industry, all of these things for everyone
1:51
listening. This is your first official time
1:53
on the Cattle USA Daily Podcast. Can you share with the audience
1:56
just kind of who you are, what you do, all of those things for
1:59
everyone before we jump into our topic today?
2:02
Sure. Well, Lauren, I'm also very
2:03
selfishly excited about this. It's like almost like a mandated
2:06
type of interaction conversation.
2:09
Both of us leave incredibly busy lives.
2:11
And so I think we all crave that human interaction.
2:13
And even though we are states apart, this is our way of having
2:17
that. So thank you for having me.
2:19
For those who don't know who I am in my background, my name is
2:22
Emma Kaufman. I am the founder and owner of EE
2:24
Ranch Advocacy. And it's exactly what it sounds
2:26
like. I advocate for agriculture and
2:29
help educate not only consumers but also producers on an
2:33
international scale. So when I was in the more
2:36
corporate side of agriculture, I realized that unless you were
2:40
backed by financial means like companies or organizations, it
2:45
was really difficult to go to conferences and much less travel
2:49
internationally and see what kind of opportunities, resources
2:52
and education was out there. And so I looked at it as why
2:56
should you have to take a 17 hour flight to know what's going
2:58
on in Australia? Now Internet social media has
3:01
really helped with that. So I feel as though I'm just a
3:04
drop in the bucket. But all I look at myself is a
3:07
megaphone trying to help convey what producers and consumers
3:12
concerns right in the industry and help share stories.
3:16
And so we have a free education portal, there's an interactive
3:19
website that allows you to contact producers and companies
3:21
directly. And I just look at myself as the
3:24
middle man and selfishly kind of like this podcast.
3:27
I get to have a lot of fun travel internationally.
3:29
I just came back from Europe. Incredibly eye opening.
3:32
So I do that full time. And then I also work for ATV
3:35
station as the AG journalist there.
3:37
And then because I don't know the word no.
3:39
Also in the show host for a YouTube series called Ranch
3:42
Worthy. It is a grant through the
3:44
NRCSUSDA program and the Texas A&M Center for Grazing Lands and
3:48
Ranch Management, focusing a little more on the regenerative
3:51
agriculture, which look, I will be the first one to say I was
3:54
like, I don't know about regen, like that little tree hugger for
3:57
me. But my perceptions and
3:59
understandings and stances have changed a lot over the last few
4:03
years. And I think that's what we're
4:05
here to talk about today and for future episodes too, is maybe
4:09
some things that we were told about or some things that we had
4:12
preconceived notions about may or may not be true.
4:14
And as I have, I've been very gracious, grateful and blessed
4:19
enough to be able to go to producers doorsteps.
4:23
There's no filter, there's no cut out.
4:24
I am seeing it right there, boots on the ground.
4:27
And so just trying to help producers and consumers just
4:31
learn more about their food and how to be better at it.
4:34
I am so excited to chat about our topic for this week and that
4:41
is Trump's recent comments on the packing industry and the DOJ
4:47
and what all of that means, what that is going to look like.
4:51
You have some really great thoughts and insight on this, so
4:56
I would love to hear about all of it.
4:59
I'm, I know, I know I'm opening a can of worms right now, but
5:03
the can of worms has been opened so.
5:06
Yeah, Well, Lauren, thank you again for having me.
5:08
I'm so excited to see you again. Yeah.
5:11
So this has been something that's done on the Internet.
5:13
It's been blowing up my Facebook feed for a while now.
5:16
It's talking about beef prices. And I was in Europe when Trump
5:18
decided to make a comment about the importation of Argentinian
5:22
beef. And that absolutely just blew a,
5:25
you know, the the gasket of the industry.
5:27
And we did see a little bit of a market tip.
5:30
But what we need to realize is that there's a reason Trump
5:33
picked Argentina. There's a reason why we are
5:38
well, why some of the things were said in the 1st place.
5:41
We all know Trump that he as great of a leader as he is, he
5:44
is very you don't tell him how to feel or you don't tell him
5:48
what to do, right? You need to have a conversation.
5:50
So when corporate wall actually has a great, great YouTube video
5:55
about this that he breaks it down.
5:57
But essentially when we are dealing with China trying to
6:00
understand the back story about why did Trump even stick his
6:03
nose to begin with in the beef industry.
6:05
Well, there's there's a couple things.
6:07
The prices are high right now because we had an inventory
6:09
shortage of cow herd numbers. We all know that was due to the
6:13
decrease of population due to drought.
6:16
The last few years have been insanely bad with drought to the
6:20
point where we didn't have water grown cattle.
6:21
So the only option you have is to sell off those cattle.
6:25
So we saw a dip in the market, we saw a dip in producer
6:30
consumer pricing and now we're seeing an uptick because when
6:33
you have a good old fashioned supply and demand, shortage of
6:36
supply, high demand, that price goes up.
6:39
And again, that attests to our quality and standards that we
6:42
have here in the US. Beef is a highly nutritious
6:45
product that is a fantastic protein source, probably the
6:48
most nutrient dense protein source on the planet for per oz
6:53
standpoint. You know, veggie burgers don't
6:55
have a chance against beef. So when we're looking at our
6:59
products, there is a concern and beef prices have been a topic
7:03
conversation across media sources.
7:05
And so I believe is it encompass beef.
7:09
Encompass Beef had a conversation with Trump and they
7:12
tried to tell Trump basically, hey, you're an you're an idiot,
7:16
you need to do something about the beef industry, etcetera.
7:20
I wasn't in the room. I don't know what was said.
7:23
All I know is that it ticked off Trump to the point that he left
7:28
the meeting before it ended to go to China, which is why it was
7:30
filmed on a plane. His first preliminary comments
7:33
about it, about the beef industry.
7:35
What we don't understand or what wasn't told was that because of
7:38
China's stay stalemate with the tariffs, we import a lot of
7:42
precious minerals from China. We depend on a lot of those
7:45
precious minerals. China decided to be a stick in
7:47
the mud and they were not playing game with us when it
7:50
came to the whole tariffs. And like, hey, like if you drop
7:53
your prices, we'll drop our prices.
7:55
And China being China was like, no, we want to keep taking
7:58
advantage of every country in the world.
8:00
Stand down. We're like and Trump's like, no,
8:03
no. So you know who does have
8:05
precious minerals? Argentina.
8:08
So Trump was already talking with the Argentinian president
8:10
on seeing what kind of deal we could work out with the precious
8:13
minerals. Now, with that being said, when
8:15
Trump left the meeting, because he was not a happy camper when
8:19
he left that meeting, that's why he made that comment and threw
8:23
that bone out. Now Argentine, Argentina is
8:26
number 10 on our list of import imported beef per tonnage, like
8:32
they'd have to double their export market in order to even
8:36
touch the number 9th on the list.
8:39
And if I have my notes right, which I know I do because I
8:42
pulled it directly from the USDA yesterday.
8:44
Thank you very much. OK.
8:46
So when we're talking about importation, our number one
8:51
country from imports is US or Australia, second one's Canada,
8:55
third one's Brazil. So when we're looking at
8:58
Argentina, they're only at £8.3 million as of July 1st of this
9:03
year. I don't care the projected
9:06
numbers of if we were to follow, follow through with Trump's and
9:09
claim of importing beef, I think Corbett projected it at like 36%
9:13
of what we produce on a weekly basis.
9:17
A drop in the bucket. And again, people need to
9:19
understand when we import beef, this is nothing new.
9:21
We've been doing it forever. The reason that we import beef
9:25
is we have such a high demand and our number one beef consumed
9:27
product is ground beef. We have predominantly fat
9:30
cattle. Why?
9:30
Because we have well marbled cattle.
9:32
That means you also have some seen fat that goes along with
9:34
that. So instead of throwing it away
9:37
because restaurants and fast food industries no longer use
9:40
towel as their method of frying their food, they now use cheaper
9:44
options like seed oils. We can just import lean off cuts
9:49
or lean trimmings from other countries, still ensuring that
9:52
it's safe, still ensuring that it's good quality.
9:55
And what I mean by quality is when we're talking about safety
9:58
standards and nutrition standards, the nutrition density
10:02
of a lower quality trimming from Brazil, it's not impacted
10:07
nutrition. We're talking about quality.
10:09
We're talking about Prime Choice Select.
10:12
So we import that lower grading trimming from that muscle cut to
10:19
the US to create more ground beef because again, that's our
10:22
number one consumed product. So we need to understand like
10:25
there's a whole back story to this.
10:27
I don't think that President Trump went about the best way of
10:32
articulating this. I think he was very emotional.
10:35
And from what I got to understand, Brooke Rollins
10:38
hasn't really maybe stepped up to the plate like she could
10:41
could have and should have. And maybe he didn't even ask for
10:43
her opinion. Who knows?
10:45
I'm not Trump and I'm not his brain cells.
10:47
So when we're looking at that situation, though, we need to
10:51
understand that there's a whole lot of context.
10:53
President Trump has always like 5 to 10 moves ahead of
10:56
everybody. He doesn't just say stuff Willy
10:59
nilly. Does he phrase it the best?
11:01
No. That's what got him in trouble
11:04
the first term that he was in. But there's a lot more to the
11:07
story than what the news media has been telling.
11:10
Yeah, absolutely. And I think context is important
11:13
in this entire discussion, right?
11:16
Like we have to look at this from a World Economic standard
11:19
and standpoint and understand that like, yes, was it portrayed
11:23
well? No, I think we can all agree on
11:27
that. Like it was not portrayed in the
11:29
correct way at all. Looking at it from a World
11:32
Economic standpoint is extremely important because like you said,
11:36
not a sliver of a difference like is actually going to be
11:40
made by importing Argentina beef.
11:42
Like it is going to be a drop in the bucket on the world
11:46
standard, but the PR was terrible behind this.
11:50
I think we can all agree on that.
11:52
And I think as producers, we can all sit back and say when I saw
11:56
that tweet, I kind of was like, oh, what the hell, Like what is
12:00
going on? What is happening?
12:02
I initially was like, absolutely not.
12:05
We need to not import beef. We need to rely on the American
12:07
cattle herd. Like all of these things, yadda,
12:09
yadda, yadda. I think all of us stood in that
12:12
standpoint of freaking out a little bit.
12:15
But then you step back and you're like, you actually see
12:17
the numbers that we would be importing and you're like, oh,
12:20
wait, it's not that big of a deal.
12:22
But we all initially kind of freaked out a little bit on it.
12:25
And now we can all kind of stand back and say, OK, maybe we don't
12:29
need to freak out a ton. Is it the best thing in the
12:31
world? Do I want to rely on other
12:33
foreign markets for our beef supply?
12:35
No, but these, like you said, are not going to be the stakes
12:38
that we're going to be seeing on our counter.
12:39
These are going to be the things that are going to go into our
12:42
ground beef supply. Again, all of our lean beef
12:45
products, our ground beef supply, it's going to go into
12:48
all of our byproducts, all of everything else that frankly as
12:51
the American cattle herd continues to grow and be better
12:55
and do better quality, higher ratios of what we are actually
13:01
cutting and keeping and all of those different sorts of things
13:03
are like ability has gone up greatly.
13:06
We don't have a ton of by product anymore from the
13:09
American beef supply. Our cuts are going into those
13:12
chucks, they are going into those steaks, they're going into
13:14
those high quality things that you're going to see in your beef
13:16
counter. And so I think it's still
13:18
important that we understand that we do need lean beef and we
13:21
may be all overreacted a little bit, but that takes us into what
13:26
the DOJ comment. Yeah.
13:28
And the comments on our packing industry and how, I don't know
13:32
who talked to who, who had the conversation with who, but
13:36
someone had the conversation that opens Trump's eyes to the
13:39
fact that like, hey, the American cattle rancher is not
13:42
the one that influences prices that our consumers are seeing.
13:46
This is kind of what's happening.
13:48
We got a lot of vertical integration in our packing
13:50
industry. We have a lot of different
13:53
things going on there. So I would love to hear your
13:56
thoughts and comments on the DOJ investigation on the packing
14:00
industry and everything there as well.
14:03
Yeah. I mean, and to your point, this
14:05
is a very emotional business, right, When you have a president
14:09
that said the things that he said on his, I guess it's not
14:14
Twitter or whatever post. True social.
14:16
True social thank you. I was like, what's the one
14:19
nowadays? Twitter's now X like so much has
14:21
changed since 2015. But anyway, when we're looking
14:25
at this type of situation, we also need to understand all
14:28
right, for me it was hey, hey, what?
14:30
How dare you talk about our industry when your entire
14:33
campaign, not entire, but a large part of your campaign was
14:36
going to Iowa farmers and signing their tractors, right.
14:38
So I feel like the American people got very emotional and
14:41
they felt like the president they've voted for is no longer
14:45
on their side. I think that Trump, if he could,
14:49
I think if you gave him the opportunity to maybe make
14:52
different decisions, he probably would have.
14:55
But the fact of the matter is, is we're dealing with a very
15:00
emotional cow calf, stalker, seed stock, whatever the
15:04
beginning part of the life cycle, right, of that beef
15:06
animal. It's a very emotional 'cause
15:08
it's a very family based business over what is like 96%
15:12
of United States producers are family owned and operated.
15:16
And so we're dealing with families.
15:18
Then it goes into the feed yard often times family owned.
15:22
Did you know Cargill is also a family owned?
15:24
Cargill is family owned, did not know that until quite literally
15:28
yesterday. And so when I, when we're
15:30
talking about the DOJ and, and the, in the investigation that
15:35
they are going to do or that they say they're going to do
15:38
about the meat packing industry, I was always on the perception
15:41
that, and this is part of like growing, right?
15:44
Like no matter how old you are, you can always grow in your
15:46
knowledge, your experience, your understanding the world changes,
15:48
you should be changing too, right?
15:51
And I was always on the notion that there's price fixing, that
15:54
the Packers are the one that sets up prices.
15:56
They are never going to lose money.
15:59
They're always going to have a profit margin budgeted in.
16:02
If they don't, what they if they need to push prices down, then
16:05
they'll just stop buying for a while and put pressure on the
16:08
feed yards. Like that's just the the notion
16:10
that I was under as of late. And I'm still learning and I
16:14
still have some more interviews and conversations to have, but I
16:18
think we're going to see what the DOJ is a very different
16:22
outcome than what we're predicting.
16:24
I think a lot of producers are predicting to see this huge
16:27
price fixing. And yes, there has been price
16:29
fixing in the past. I'm not taking that away from
16:31
anybody. Have they been held accountable
16:34
and in charge for those decisions?
16:37
Yes, they have. But from what I have been told
16:40
by those who do have more relationships and experience in
16:44
that packing side of the industry is that Packers will
16:47
lose money because they play the long game.
16:50
If they can lose money on a six months on the forefront and they
16:53
can see how it can actually benefit them in the long run,
16:58
they will make those decisions and they will lose money.
17:02
Because what we're hearing right now from my connections in the
17:05
Packer industry is the Packers are losing money.
17:08
The retailers I talked to HEBA couple weeks ago, they're losing
17:11
money because HEB makes their money off of right now.
17:16
They make their money off of the sides right?
17:18
Like the prepackaged items, the pastas, the the sauces, the
17:22
packaged food, ready to go stuff.
17:25
That's where they make their their most margin.
17:28
They're OK with you getting to the store to buy meat even if
17:31
they're not making any money or if they're just breaking even on
17:34
it. They're OK with that because in
17:36
their mind, you're going to be buying other stuff.
17:38
If you're buying ground beef, you're going to be buying Taco
17:40
shells, you're going to be buying hamburger buns, lettuce,
17:42
tomato, mustard, ketchup. So for them, that's their other
17:48
income. With the Packers, again, I
17:51
always thought that Nope, they will.
17:52
They will set that ceiling. They will set that floor.
17:55
And from my recent conversations, that may not be
17:58
true. And I was talking with the meat
17:59
specialist over at Texas Tech, Raider Red Meats.
18:02
They have a fantastic judging team.
18:04
Even though I'm an A&M alumni, they do have a really good
18:07
judging team. And they're right here in the
18:09
Panhandle in the midst of all the Packers, right?
18:12
What we call the packing industry, the meat processors.
18:15
And I was asking him this exact questions.
18:17
Like I'm, I literally, I on my own account made a video talking
18:20
about, hey, we need more competition in the market space
18:24
outside of the four. But it's a lot easier said than
18:28
done. You can't just build a new
18:29
facility. Amarillo's trying, but that's
18:30
still a drop in the bucket. What I think it's like Tyson
18:32
alone is 130 to 148,000,000 lbs of boxed beef per week.
18:38
Amarillo's not going to be able to touch that.
18:41
And your local processor, Well, yes, shop local.
18:45
I'm down for that. Build relationships also down
18:47
for that when we're talking about from a sustainability
18:49
level, that's not that's not the avenue.
18:52
And So what I was told was that the DOJ when they do their
18:55
investigation, they're probably going to see the Packers are
18:58
actually losing money. So I guess we'll find that out.
19:01
That was a my my head is like kind of still blown.
19:06
I'm finding the pieces trying to put it back together because of
19:09
what I thought I knew that side of the industry may not be 100%
19:14
true, but to be to be fair, I have not had my foot over the
19:18
threshold of about those facilities quite yet.
19:21
Yeah. I think that's, I think going
19:23
back to what you said when you started this conversation of
19:26
that's part of growing, that's part of growth and that's part
19:28
of being open minded as cattle producers.
19:31
I think all of us can work on that a little bit of being open
19:34
minded to change and to things that have changed within our
19:38
industry. Again, I am not a person that
19:42
has a super well formed opinion on it quite yet because I'm kind
19:46
of in the same boat that you are right now, Emma of like I'm
19:50
willing to hear both sides of this coin and then I'm going to
19:54
make an opinion based off of that.
19:56
I haven't heard the other side of the coin at the level that I
20:00
want to quite yet. Historically, I'm going to look
20:04
at a historic aspect in the beef industry.
20:08
We have seen a lot of price fixing.
20:10
We have seen a lot of untrustworthy relationships
20:13
between producers and Packers. We have seen a lot of
20:17
historical. Hurt and manipulation and a lot
20:21
of these other things that have forced us to have the opinion,
20:25
the opinions in the viewpoints that we do right now.
20:28
Is that still the packing industry that we're working
20:30
with? Yeah, it is in some instances,
20:33
But is it everyone? That's not necessarily true
20:36
either. And so I think that it is
20:39
extremely interesting to open our eyes and our mind up to what
20:43
the packing industry could be. I really hope that we see some
20:46
more independent Packers get established and a push for
20:50
those. Again, not an overnight
20:52
solution, not something that is easy to do, takes a ton of
20:56
funding, a ton of time. You either have to build a new
20:59
facility or acquire an old facility.
21:02
And historically, we have seen that once facilities close,
21:04
opening them back up is extremely difficult to do in the
21:08
packing industry. And so again, very interested to
21:13
see the results that the DOJ has from this supposed investigation
21:18
that they're going to do. And I mean, hey, we heard in the
21:20
Biden administration that this was going to happen twice, and
21:24
it never actually came to fruition.
21:26
So we'll see if this comes to fruition and what actually comes
21:29
out of it. Again, I think like my biggest
21:31
thing is as producers, be open minded, understand that like,
21:36
yeah, we've been burned pretty hard in the past.
21:39
We absolutely have. So you're allowed to have your
21:41
guardrails up. You are allowed to kind of have
21:43
those walls built, but be willing to still have that
21:47
conversation through the fence. I think is the main ask that a
21:51
lot of people have with this of like be a little open minded and
21:56
understand that things can change and things can develop.
21:59
So I'm very curious to see what the results are of this
22:03
investigation and then how those results are going to therefore
22:07
impact our market on the board and in the sale barn and how
22:12
that all is going to play into effect.
22:14
Yeah, absolutely. And exactly to your point, we
22:17
have been burned a lot repetitively.
22:20
And I'm not saying that you should have like this full
22:23
blatant open trust. You should have questions, ask
22:26
them, but be willing to hear the answer and at least having an
22:29
open mind. And then here's my thing is I do
22:31
not have, I need a lot, like you said, I need a lot more evidence
22:34
and I need a lot more conversations.
22:36
Because if I want to change my position on this particular part
22:40
of the industry and what I've been saying before, if I'm going
22:44
to change my position, I need plenty of evidence and
22:47
background and context in order for me to confidently stand on a
22:51
platform of concrete. The last thing I want to do is
22:54
stand on straw and then sit there and wonder why I'm I'm
22:57
falling when I did it to myself, right.
23:00
And like I think you said, I think the Packer industry has a
23:03
lot of questions to answer. One of the things I had
23:07
mentioned to my contact was saying, hey, like why is it so
23:10
difficult to get conversations from the Packer?
23:12
Like they are the most closed door part of this entire beef
23:15
chain. And what I was told was, hey, it
23:18
was more of a bio security concern than a transparency
23:24
concern. I don't know if I fully buy
23:26
that. I think that that is a
23:27
possibility. But I really do think that they
23:31
have had the option and opportunity several times to
23:35
voice their side of the story. So I and whether or not maybe
23:41
they have shared their side of the story and I wasn't listening
23:43
or I was in a different room. I will, you know, I'll take
23:47
that. If I that was a me not paying
23:49
attention, then that's on me. And I'd love to hear people's
23:52
comments, maybe in the comments section, drop down what you
23:55
think. But this is a very emotional
23:58
process. It's very difficult for farmers
24:00
and ranchers. They're in this whole supply
24:02
chain for the first time. Producers, at least in my
24:05
history of being in the industry, producers are finally
24:08
getting money and I don't think that should change.
24:11
I think they should, but it's a commodity.
24:13
We got to remember they can. Consumer has to remember this is
24:16
a commodity. Just because it was at your
24:19
store yesterday does not mean it's going to be there next
24:21
week. It's a supply and demand, which
24:24
is what people who are removed from agriculture don't
24:26
understand. If you had your garden back in
24:29
the day, you didn't have tomatoes all year round.
24:32
You had to figure out how to can them.
24:33
You had to figure out a storm. That's why smoke houses and
24:36
salting your beef was so popular back in the day is because to
24:38
make it last same thing here when and we as a consumer in
24:44
America get, you know, pretty spoiled because we can import a
24:47
lot of seasonal fruit from other countries or we figure out how
24:51
in greenhouses how to make a sustainable because you want to
24:54
make a BlackBerry pie in January.
24:56
It's like that's not growing season.
24:59
So we also need to keep in mind too that this is a commodity
25:02
that we're dealing with. This is something that will go
25:05
through market trends, will go through market charge, charge
25:09
fluctuation. So it's going to be interesting.
25:12
I'm really, really excited to see what's going to come out of
25:15
this, if anything does. And if anything, it's given me a
25:18
lot more incentive to grow my relationships in that part of
25:21
the industry because that is 1 area that I don't have first
25:25
hands, you know, boots on the ground experience in.
25:27
And it's also not one I have a lot of relationships in.
25:30
So if you work in the beef packing industry and you would
25:33
love for someone to Share your story accurately with no like
25:37
filter like, Hey, this is, you know, I'm not putting any spin
25:40
on it. I'm just trying to put together
25:42
the story holler at me because I really I really do.
25:46
And it's not to fear monger because we see a lot of that on
25:49
the Internet. JBS has not really done the best
25:51
of jobs of preventing that. We see a lot of fear mongering.
25:55
We see a lot of accounts that say things and allegations that
26:00
if you look at their other content is not true.
26:02
So be careful where you listen to your sources.
26:04
And thanks for listening to this podcast because we try to be as
26:08
transparent and accurate as possible.
26:11
And again, just because my stance, it may be different
26:14
tomorrow than it was two years ago.
26:18
Like you said earlier, Lauren, situations change, things
26:21
change, policies change, leadership, leadership changes.
26:24
I just learned about Lays a couple weeks ago about how they
26:28
had to change our whole branding system because of the oils that
26:32
they use. They used to use cotton seed oil
26:34
and then cotton went through a drought, got super expensive, so
26:39
they started buying other sunflower oil and they did this
26:42
whole branding process of they were going to be like, oh, we're
26:45
sunflower only. Well, then sunflowers they
26:47
realized wasn't an ample supply that they thought.
26:50
So now on the label it says cotton seed oil, sunflower seed
26:54
oil, canola oil and other oils. That sounds like a vague
26:59
umbrella is to help with cost. Just like they went through a
27:02
transition. We go through a transition all
27:04
the time in the food industry. Yeah, absolutely.
27:07
I couldn't have rounded it out in a better way.
27:10
Emma, I agree with everything that you said there.
27:12
And I think it's just really remembering to kind of remember
27:16
that we can keep an open mind as far as this goes, that we don't
27:20
know what the results of this are going to be.
27:23
I think the biggest thing we're asking for is transparency.
27:27
Be honest with us, show us behind closed doors what is
27:31
happening right now. And that is something that we
27:33
haven't seen. And so I'm really excited to
27:36
hopefully get some transparency that comes out of this.
27:38
And it's just very interested to see what is going on behind
27:42
those closed doors and what we see at the end of this whole
27:45
situation and potential investigation as well.
27:47
So Emma, thank you for your time today.
27:49
To all of our listeners out there, if you enjoyed what we
27:51
were talking about today, make sure you check out the show
27:53
notes down below. I have all of Emma's links down
27:55
below where she will be talking more about this as it continues
27:58
to transpire both here on this podcast and on her own social
28:02
media accounts as well. So thank you for listening to
28:04
another episode and we will see you all tomorrow on another
28:07
episode of the Cattle USA Daily podcast.
28:09
Have a good one y'all.