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Meat Your Markets By Mack Graves
Mack Graves has worked in animal-food proteins for the past 39 years, specializing in corporate strategy, management focus and marketing effectiveness across the protein chain.

A lesson for meat processors from Volkswagen

(The views and opinions expressed in this blog are strictly those of the author.)

Now what does a car company, albeit one of the largest in the world, have anything to do with the meat business?  Well, we learn our lessons in a myriad of places and this is a lesson in greed and its consequences.

The background:  it was recently discovered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that Volkswagen (VW) installed software on their diesel cars designed to defeat emission tests.  In other words, VW purposely designed and installed a system to cheat.  

The agency says the VW software has a timer that makes the cars perform differently when being tested than they perform on the road.  On the road, the cars give off up to nine times more nitrogen oxide pollution than allowed by EPA standards, the agency said. 

What was VW thinking?

VW is no small outfit. The Volkswagen Group annually sells over 10 million passenger cars under the Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, SEAT, Škoda and Volkswagen marques.  They also sell motorcycles under the Ducati brand and commercial vehicles.

Their diesel vehicles are sold under the banner of  “clean diesel.” You can bet they were clean; at least they were when emission tested, but not out on America’s “autobahns.”

I am not suggesting that our meat companies, no matter their size, cheat in such an egregious manner as VW did.  In fact, I am not suggesting our meat companies cheat at all.  But, what I am proposing is that we use caution as suggested by the Scotsman, Sir Walter Scott, “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive” in our decision making processes.

In the 1920s, two of the top five largest companies in the United States were Swift and Armour.  Like it or not, the rich heritage we all share in the meat business is one of not only families building businesses from scratch to national prominence but also of, shall we say, challenging convention to get there.

Stretching the specifications by cutting an extra inch off the chuck to leave on the rib raises the value of that one inch of beef considerably.  Is that cheating?  No, but I use that as an example of beginning a slide down a slippery slope.  When and where do you stop?

As with most company cultures, it all starts at the top of an organization.  Some scientist somewhere inside of VW probably suggested that their cars could circumvent the emission testing process.  But, that scientist would have only traveled down that road of designing such a system if he/she felt his/her bosses would be pleased by it.  And, his/her bosses would have been pleased because of one thing—greed.  Because that evidently was the culture that existed within VW.

Do you know what culture you inspire within your company?  Aside from the platitudes in your public statements or the plagues on the walls within your offices, what do all of your decisions say about what you want for your meat company?  If you pronounce one thing but do the other, you are disingenuous to a fault.  And, you are sending clear signals to your company that cheating, yes, cheating will be tolerated.

Don’t do it.  Please don’t do it.

Greed is so seductive.  It comes cloaked in disguises that seem so innocuous.  Dare I say it, but is ractopamine greed in the disguise of efficiency?  Meat from livestock fed it has been deemed safe for human consumption in the United States, but banned in other countries.  Again, I use this as an example of decisions that may have been based on some motive akin to greed.

Excoriate me if you will for even saying such a thing.  I do so to get your attention. All those decisions you make form your culture.  They send signals throughout your company and beyond to your customers of what will be encouraged and what will be tolerated within your company.

Let’s not get trapped by greed.  VW now has a scandal that will haunt them for years not to mention cost billions of dollars and a loss of consumer confidence in their brands that will do far more economic damage.

We are far better than that.

11/5/2015

 
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