Costco opening a $440M chicken farm to escape America's chicken monopoly

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/05/costco--chickens-tyson-perdue-monopoly-america-agriculture-farming.html

by jseliger • 8 years ago

380 271 8 years ago

cnbc.com

ivankolev• 8 years ago

If it is going to use the same factory farming processes, what's the point?

eweise• 8 years ago

I read somewhere they want smaller chickens that the farms produce.

traek• 8 years ago

NPR has more info about motivations:

Building a system to stock its own stores is a way for the company to better manage supply and costs, especially because poultry companies are trending away from raising chickens to be sold whole.
According to Will Sawyer, a meat industry economist for the Denver-based farm lender CoBank, chicken producers are growing bigger chickens to sell in parts. "The vast majority are processed into chicken breasts or leg quarters or thighs, or they're further processed into strips or nuggets," Sawyer said. "That's where the industry has gone over 50 years now."

https://www.npr.org/2018/10/22/659561091/costco-builds-nebra...

kevindong• 8 years ago

I think there's two reasons:

1. They're partially insulating themselves from price changes in the chicken market. By raising the chickens themselves, they can guarantee that they'll only pay a certain price for the chicken they raise.

2. Fewer intermediaries = lower prices since there's fewer companies that each need to make some money = higher profit

dguaraglia2• 8 years ago

Planet Money had a really good episode on the kind of shit the "chicken cartel" pulls off: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/05/09/609890025/epis...

zhobbs• 8 years ago

I think it's just classic vertical integration, nothing to do with how animals are treated: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/012715/when-does-it...

MrTonyD2• 8 years ago

I suspect that this is about quality of product. Chicken has had a lot of problems with poisoning people here in the US (since our standards for the environment where chickens are kept isn't designed to reduce disease - rather, it encourages disease.) People have gotten sick from Costco chickens - and Costco's better smaller suppliers have been taken over by the large producers - and of course people start dying again. As long as the profits stay high chicken producers are able to get laws passed to avoid any real regulation. Corrupt government is the real problem we should all be trying to solve as software developers.

danieljohnson• 8 years ago

Do you have any ideas on how software developers can solve the problem of corrupt government?

Not being facetious, curious to hear what your views are.

Centigonal• 8 years ago

OpenSecrets[1] and Sunlight Foundation[2] are great places to start. That said, IMO the greatest change is achieved by canvassing, working in public policy, or running for office oneself. Senator Jacky Rosen (D - NV), a former Software Developer, is a great example.

[1] https://www.opensecrets.org/ [2] https://sunlightfoundation.com/

MrTonyD2• 8 years ago

Well, who is making decisions and how are they being made. What metrics matter? How can we judge them better? How can we improve them in people?

Or, to go even further, have you ever seen Star Trek where they use the holodeck for Training? They have many real-world scenarios so that they can build experience. Couldn't the same be done in many other domains.

kbenson• 8 years ago

Corrupt government is the real problem we should all be trying to solve as software developers.

While I agree it's a problem we should all be trying to solve, I'm not sure what being software developers has to do with it. To me, that statement sounds just as odd as if you had said "corrupt government is the real problem we should all be trying to solve as retail employees."

Software and networks might have some role in a solution, but I think any worthwhile solution will start with people and policy, and possibly use software and networks to help (just as it may use resources from other professional industries, economists, such as legal professionals, etc). I think any solution that comes out of trying to shove computer science theory and practice at the problem is most likely doomed to fail.

Actually, if I had to choose one discipline to that had the most to offer to this problem, it would definitely be economics.

mschuster91• 8 years ago

I'm not sure what being software developers has to do with it.

For example by providing a safe way to whistle-blow. Or by making encrypted communication more accessible (Decades after PGP invention, e-mail crypto borders on unusability). Or by fighting against laws that mainly serve to introduce censorship. Or, by not helping governments censor or manipulate their populace (hello Cisco).

The biggest enemy for a corrupt government is journalism and whistle-blowing.

JSeymourATL• 8 years ago

The rotisserie chicken is a well-documented loss-leader for Costco. At $4.99 for a three-pound bird, it’s an amazing solution for quick weeknight dinners.> https://www.thekitchn.com/costco-chicken-loss-leader-strateg...

larrik• 8 years ago

Costco's rotisseries chickens are MUCH better than the grocery stores', as well.

maerF0x03• 8 years ago

And yet, so far below getting a quality bird and roasting yourself...

I've noticed that many of the rotisserie birds have really odd texture, I think because they're grossly overcooked

trimbo• 8 years ago

They really are, and it's because of all of that salt!

AceJohnny2• 8 years ago

American chicken monopoly run by the likes of Tyson, Pilgrim's Pride and Perdue.

That's not what "monopoly" means.

nickpsecurity• 8 years ago

Yup. That's an oligopoly. If a monopoly, the pricing and service would've been so bad that they'd have tried this sooner.

philip1209• 8 years ago

Is "cartel" the word they are looking for?

SaltyBackendGuy• 8 years ago

Cartel is probably much closer than monopoly.

dragontamer6• 8 years ago

Cartel implies a degree of collusion.

Oligopoly seems like the most accurate word choice.

chrisseaton6• 8 years ago

'Monopoly' seems to have become a completely meaningless word. I think it now sort of vaguely means a marketplace or any number of successful companies doing their own thing, and people complaining about a monopoly just seem to be complaining that there are any number of existing successful companies in a space they'd either like to be in as well, or that a company won't do exactly what they want.

meddlepal• 8 years ago

I've noticed this as well. Really weird change in the words meaning.

zzzcpan8• 8 years ago

in a space they'd either like to be in as well

But that's exactly what monopoly means, i.e. you can't get in and compete with those players.

It sounds like you are justifying monopolized markets for whatever reason.

ThrustVectoring• 8 years ago

Monopoly seems to refer more to "monopoly power" in general and the barriers to entry that exist to protect entrenched interests from competition. Duopolies and oligopolies all have a degree of "monopoly power" without being a true monopoly.

notSupplied2• 8 years ago

It has lost its ring because too many people are casually throwing it around. I'd prefer "entrenched rent extractors" followed up with some evidence of how they're rent seeking rather than competing. Sure it doesn't have the same ring to it but it is more specific about what kinds of symptoms of disfunction to look for.

fudgy73• 8 years ago

I'm not suggesting or implying this is happening in the chicken industry but an oligopoly that is colluding can act as a monopoly.

dragontamer6• 8 years ago

That's called a cartel.

CNBC is a major news organization, so they generally should be using English correctly. I think a blog post can have technical errors here and there, but the standards for a proper news article are higher.

dguaraglia2• 8 years ago

Oligopoly?

coryfklein• 8 years ago

Oh god, why is everyone here so pedantic.

"Monopoly" in this sense is meant to indicate that one is put in a bad negotiating position because the power/options are consolidated into few hands that can demand bargains that are beneficial to their side thus, in this case, disadvantaging Costco.

Every time you use the word "monopoly" it doesn't have to have an exact 1:1 relationship with a law 101 textbook definition.

aristophenes2• 8 years ago

"Monopoly" in this sense is wrong, because Costco has more than 5 suppliers that they can choose from to buy what they want, and they are getting chicken for really low prices. No one is getting extorted here, except for the farmers, and Costco is just looking to take advantage of them the same way the big chicken companies do. Chicken is half the price than grapes in a lot of places, by weight. It's insanely cheap.

The real travesty is that these companies hold regional monopsonies so the farmers can only sell to one company, putting them in a bad spot where the chicken companies can dictate terms. Costco wants to be able to do that directly to farmers too, without the middle man.

SN76477• 8 years ago

American culture is innumerate, you have to use words they understand.

abc03• 8 years ago

Watching several documentation and seeing chicken farms, I Never buy USD 5 chickens anymore. I buy only organic (more time to grow) and if available from my preferred supplier from the farmer’s market (she only slaughters 5 times a year and grows different breeds). My nephew from the US came over and was shocked at the taste (I didn’t tell him about the price as he would probably not eat it). Food prices are not a concern for me and I prefer to increase quality instead of quantity. I should anyway eat less.

qrbLPHiKpiux• 8 years ago

Said this to myself recently - I think I buy too much food. Or is it just the packaging... As of lately, I've been patronizing this local farmer's market, they're only open two days a week and I'm buying what I need for the week. I am making a conscious effort to stay out of big-box grocery.

magic_beans• 8 years ago

When I do eat meat, I'll buy pastured meat only from the farmer's market or ethical butchers. Pastured chicken is $16 a pound. This is definitely not feasible for the average shopper. But then again -- people don't need to be eating chicken every single day.

nocobot• 8 years ago

I'm a low income student (in a first world country so still far from poor) and it is totally doable for me to only buy animal products from ethical sources. It just means I eat a lot less of it. I don't think everyone needs to be able to afford to eat meat every day.

darkarmani2• 8 years ago

I read this as "pasteurized chicken". I was really confused by what you meant at first.

henryl• 8 years ago

To be honest, although I prefer organic chicken for health and ethical reasons, mass produced chicken tastes juicier and better.

throwaway5752• 8 years ago

You might want to brine it. Commercial does brine injection and depending on organic, that might not be the case.

onetimemanytime• 8 years ago

>mass produced chicken tastes juicier and better.

You might be referring to the "gamy" part of it. That's valid for super wild chickens, but a little walk only makes them a lot better. There's no comparison in taste between a 50 day old chicken raised in mass-produced conditions and a 6-7 month one that roams in someone's backyard.

d1zzy• 8 years ago

I strongly disagree. One of the most obvious (among many) differences we noticed when moving to the US from Europe is the taste of chicken meat. It just tastes very bland and almost chemical. Years later we discovered that (organic, etc) chicken at Whole Foods was better but still not perfect. I've confirmed similar issues with the taste of many vegetables (and I'm not even talking about tomatoes, those I can grow in my backyard and are delicious) and confirmed this with other immigrants.

rorykoehler• 8 years ago

No way. Organic free range tastes way better.

mrnobody_67• 8 years ago

Yeah... it's indentured servitude... chicken farmers take on millions in debt, and walk out with wages of $20-30K for 18 hour days x 7 days per week..

bertjk• 8 years ago

That doesn't make much sense. Someone in a position to invest millions (or take out millions in loans) would more likely be paying someone else wages to do the work, whether 18 hours or whatever. From what I hear contract poultry farming has become almost a turnkey sort of business. You contract with one of the poultry majors, they supply you with a lot of the supplies you need for whichever niche you occupy, and then basically guarantee buying your entire output.

pathseeker2• 8 years ago

Yeah... it's indentured servitude

That phrase doesn't mean what you think it means. If you can declare bankruptcy, you can't be an indentured servant.

patrickg_zill• 8 years ago

In the Philippines there is a chain of restaurants called Chicken Bacolod. The chicken is a bit smaller than the US but the taste is much better. I think that the chickens are allowed to eat bugs and root around in the dirt.

dbancajas• 8 years ago

are you filipino?

burtonator• 8 years ago

I've always thought that we need some sort of consumer 'geiger counter' where the user can scan a product and have some sort of objective criteria they can use to determine if they should buy/eat something.

rusk3• 8 years ago

They’ve been trying to bring in this kind of thing for years but industry having none of it

KingMachiavelli• 8 years ago

It's pretty difficult to make something handheld that can scan beneath the surface layer. All of the kickstarter food scanners are crap.

hinkley• 8 years ago

I have several friends who claim to be socially and environmentally conscious but still get sucked in by the cheap baked chickens at the grocery store.

It's $5-6 bucks, seasoned, cooked, in a plastic container. You know there's no way that's a fair price, right?

ivl• 8 years ago

Those are a loss leader, though. Those are chickens typically past the sell by date. Grocery stores actually take a loss on those, but they're appealing and convenient. People will pick them up during normal grocery shopping and have an easy meal.

novaleaf• 8 years ago

Rotisserie chickens are often used as loss-leader. Here's one of many articles on the subject: https://www.wsj.com/articles/rotisserie-chickens-the-ninetie...

colechristensen2• 8 years ago

Unfair to whom?

rixrax• 8 years ago

All the ethical and taste concerns aside, is that $5 chicken worse, better or about the same for feeding a hungry person? I am thinking of calories intake, potential medium/long term health advantages/disadvantages?

edit: was pointed to this Reuters[0] article which seems like a reasonable starting point.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-money-chicken-organic/is-...

ChristianBundy• 8 years ago

If you're optimizing for caloric intake and health advantages, I'd recommend looking into eating plants (and fungi). Plants are always more efficient than animals for caloric and nutrient intake because animals burn the calories they eat before you eat the animals.

You may be interested in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio

temporalparts• 8 years ago

My understanding (no sources) is that better treated chickens have:

- Fewer hormones for growth

- Fewer antibiotics (diseases spread rapidly in confined spaces)

- Higher quality meat (Chicken gets more exercise and movement, as well as increased quality of feed)

- Higher nutritional value (increased exercise and sunlight, potentially)

In terms of calories though, it's probably a wash, and more inefficient from calories/money.

edit: formatting

totalrobe• 8 years ago

Anecdotally, those $5 Costco chickens are bigger than competitors' $6.49 rotisserie chickens

mlindner3• 8 years ago

Organic food is negligibly different from non-organic food and is generally worse for the environment because of the additional resources required for it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PmM6SUn7Es

yegle• 8 years ago

Why would you say organic chicken takes more time to grow? Organic has nothing to do with how long it takes to grow the chicken right?

msrpotus• 8 years ago

The antibiotics fed to non-organic animals cause them to grow faster.

hjek• 8 years ago

If you get tofurkey or mock duck instead, you'll never have to worry whether it was battery chicken from a factory farm. Yes, it may taste slightly different, but it's a tiny cost to pay to prevent a long time of extreme suffering.

For me, it has helped my mental well being, to not (even subconsciously) have to think about the life of the being whose flesh I've been eating.

pstuart• 8 years ago

Beyond Meat is doing "chicken strips" now and is going full tilt boogie on other meats: bratwurst, steak, and bacon!

https://www.livekindly.co/beyond-meat-expands-to-develop-veg...

GordonS• 8 years ago

it may taste slightly different

Slightly different? I like vegetables and tofu as much as they next person, but 'textured protein' meat alternatives taste nothing like the real thing.

I prefer just to spend a little more on a non-battery chicken.

lancesells• 8 years ago

Most of those meat alternatives are either soy or wheat based and not necessarily the healthiest kind of food. IMO if you don't want to eat meat learn how to cook vegetables in a tasty way. There's some pretty amazing dishes you can make from fresh(and not processed) vegetables.

makewavesnotwar• 8 years ago

Yeah I personally stopped buy chicken years ago for mostly ethical reasons but I think Costco getting into the chicken game will probably be a net positive.

Reason being that for one, Costco was one of the first grocers to start replacing items with Organic alternatives, and in general, they usually demands higher quality goods than other grocers. For example, compare the ingredient list for Delimex taquitos from Costco to your supermarket and it's basically half the size... or Campbell's "Simply" Chicken Noodle soup to what's sold at the grocer - again about half the ingredients. Even those $5 chickens Costco sells are antibiotic/hormone/steroid-free humane-certified Foster-Farms chickens.

Then there's employee treatment. Costco has a long history of being one of the better employers in the country. They pay their employees well, pay for people to attend college, don't require a lot of interaction with irate customers thanks to their no deadline any reason return policy and generally promote internally rather than hiring outsiders to leadership roles.

Compare that to the average chicken farmer who has to buy all of their own equipment that the big companies are constantly requiring them to update at their own expense, raise chickens they don't own like a horrific daycare center at very low return, all while being exposed to chemicals/drugs they're being forced to use and it's kind of a nightmare.

Costco cares about their brand image, their customers and their employees... I expect this will end up being a good thing.

ethbro6• 8 years ago

If you eat meat, the most ethical thing you can do is eat Perdue chicken (assuming you're not going sustainable aquaculture seafood). Not organic, just regular. Because long before everyone else, they decided to do what they could to weed antibiotics out of their entire production chain.

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/05/perdue-antib...

As someone who grew up in the poultry pathology industry, there are three important metrics for commercial chicken meat production: (1) mortality rate (how many chickens die), (2) feed conversion ratio (how efficiently incoming feed is turned into usable meat), & (3) time to slaughter.

Everything else (price, environment impact) is a consequence of those figures or optimizations made to target them.

Perdue, long before it was trendy (~2002) decided for market and moral reasons they were going to reorganize their operations, and those of their suppliers, to apply pre-antibiotic husbandry best practices and limit antibiotic use.

It didn't save them money. Pre-emptive dosing with antibiotics is done precisely because it makes money (by decreasing loss / all cause mortality) -- if it didn't, no one would do it in the first place.

They didn't have to do this. Hell, most people didn't even care about antibiotics in animal production then.

But they did it because they thought there would be a market for it, because they thought it was possible, and because they thought it was the right thing to do.

Costco may be an ethical company, and they may be doing this for the right reasons, but they're following.

I'd rather reward someone who chose to lead in making the world a better place.

PS: There are other ecological reasons to prefer chicken if you're eating terrestrial meat, but I didn't want to ramble on. Suffice to say, the feed conversion ratio on chicken is incredible.

babypuncher• 8 years ago

Costco does all these pro-consumer, pro-sustainability, and pro labor things while still undercutting everyone else on price. And they still make money hand over fist. It proves that every other company mistreating their livestock, filling their preserved goods with god-knows-what, or underpaying their staff is doing it out of pure profit motive rather than out of necessity to remain competitive.

paulcole• 8 years ago

Even the happy chickens get their heads cut off.

mlindner3• 8 years ago

You should watch this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PmM6SUn7Es

wyldfire• 8 years ago

My nephew from the US came over and was shocked at the taste

Shocked -- because it was surprisingly superior?

dawhizkid• 8 years ago

I hope Costco survives Amazon

rthomas6• 8 years ago

It sells a lot of large things in its warehouses that are expensive to ship. I'm sure you can buy a 50 pound bag of dog food or a giant pack of paper towels online, but will you beat Costco's price? Doubtful.

maerF0x03• 8 years ago

mostly because we value our own time below the market price to have someone else do it for us. If shipping cost ever plummets then this upend warehouse style stores.

jhall1468• 8 years ago

I buy a great deal of stuff at Amazon, but Costco still represents the largest proportion of our shopping budget. I don't really think they are comparable and I don't envision a world where Amazon really competes enough with Costco to end the company.

yuy9106162• 8 years ago

think costco also has a lot of member benefits that are hard to match by amz. Gas, tires, glasses, travel, car wash, phrma/flu shots, just to name a few.

AMZ is a platform...quality is sometimes not guranteed. Costco, i know the product went through the buyers and QA and 'won' the limited shelf space costco has to offer and made it to the store, that makes me at least trust it somewhat.

Plus...at least now grocery is still mostly in physical stores.

mark-r2• 8 years ago

One thing I've noticed about Costco is that the products they carry are always decent quality. Since Amazon carries everything it falls on you to do the research to sort the good from the bad. You can't always rely on the ratings because the ratings get gamed.

spicytunacone• 8 years ago

I don't see why it wouldn't. Others already pointed out its curation and B&M qualities, but you can also order online without a membership which is what I've done a few times (I like their protein bars). I hope Costco survives Costco.

smsm422• 8 years ago

I don't see why not. I am a consumer of both and I think there's space for both. I know Amazon owns Whole Foods now, but Costco and Whole foods are in different market niches, and I think Costco has a great business which so far is not seriously threatened by Whole Foods.

elektor• 8 years ago

Given Costco's size and influence in the food market, I'd like to see them lend more credence to the plant-based meat market which would be even better for them financial and environmentally.

Djvacto• 8 years ago

I love finding new plant-based products at our costco, but sadly they rotate in and out and so sometimes we lose a product that I would have loved to keep buying. Hopefully I see some of my favorites back in soon. I understand Costco rotates products around sometimes, even if they did well.

ianai• 8 years ago

I don’t know why I can’t at least buy lentils from Costco. They’ve got the huge bags of pintos and rice already. They could definitely apply their business model to plant based options. Instead their shelves are prime examples of foods that could otherwise be great vegan but just have animal products needlessly included.

_coveredInBees• 8 years ago

I think it depends on the local market. I live in an area with a large Asian (Indian/Pakistani/Chinese/East Asian) population and my local Costco sells all sorts of lentils along with Naan, etc. They even have a few types of boxed pre-made lentil soups (dals). It probably just doesn't make sense for them to stock lentils in markets with low demand.

blacksmith_tb2• 8 years ago

Don't be too hard on them, they're the largest organic retailer in the US[1]. Which doesn't mean they couldn't do better (in lots of ways), but they do seem to be trying.

1: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/retail/costco-becomes-...

geodel• 8 years ago

At our local costco, they have 3-4 types of lentils in typical costco size 8-10 lb bags.

ChuckMcM2• 8 years ago

I think the bigger story here is whether or not Costco's chicken will improve with respect to the other players in the market.

Consider that the 'big players' have all extracted the costs they felt they could, with the choices they made, and that is the 'standard' product most people are offered. Now we get CostCo which is making different choices and perhaps getting a different result (size, flavor, what have you). In the event that CostCo chicken becomes the market leader and perhaps people are even incentivized to join CostCo in order to have access to their chicken supply, CostCo would likely open a second and third farm so that all of their chicken needs could be met. And what would that do to the profitability of the others?

To my reading, the article implies that these large farms conspire in their offering, otherwise CostCo could just move their business to the one that was willing to meet there terms. Sort of like McDonald's and their beating potato farmers over the head with demands for the specific variety and size pototato they needed for their fries. (which they could do because their purchases were a significant chunk of the market[1])

So without cooperation from the chicken cartel, or perhaps for other unmentioned reasons, CostCo decides to become an agricultural company too.

I'm really wondering if there is some way to disrupt these large agricultural interests effectively. Imagine the Uber for Chicken Farming where an app connects people with extra chicken into a chicken acquisition and slaughtering pipeline for resale.

[1] http://www.nbcnews.com/id/32983108/ns/business-us_business/t...

droopyEyelids2• 8 years ago

Forgive my tangent, but do you have any idea why you like to write it as "CostCo"?

I notice it's a common practice on news.y to find (or invent) sub-words in names and capitalize them. Like I remember everyone writing "GroupOn" for the portmanteau of "group coupon"

It's puzzling to me and I want to understand where you're coming from!

blacksmith_tb2• 8 years ago

I assume that's instinctive camelCase[1] and/or exposure to a very large number of software packages and startups that do go for the ransom note look in their branding.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_case

hodder• 8 years ago

It is a variable naming convention known as "CapWords" or "upper CamelCase". This is the recommended naming convention for Python class's

https://legacy.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/#naming-conventi...

ams61102• 8 years ago

My boss always writes MicroSoft. I think at one point the company did spell their name that way, so maybe he just got used to it from that time.

ChuckMcM2• 8 years ago

While I like the other responses better, at one time it was part of their branding. From a phonological standpoint, it was perhaps an effort to guide the pronunciation of the name as "Cost Cō". I tend to type it that way because I hear it that way.

mark-r2• 8 years ago

For an article about chickens, there sure wasn't a lot of meat in it.

dbg31415• 8 years ago

Look, it's Costco. Not Walmart.

Costco has higher standards than just about any other retailer I can think of.

* Costco tightens standards for antibiotics use by meat producers | The Seattle Times || https://www.seattletimes.com/business/agriculture/costco-tig...

I suspect this move to own their own production is because they couldn't get the quality they expect, at prices they expect, at scale from the current suppliers.

* Animal Welfare | Costco || https://www.costco.com/sustainability-animal-welfare.html

setgree• 8 years ago

This is kind of a nitpick, but I wish articles like this specified somehow that Costco buys _dead_ chickens, and dismembered to boot. I know everybody reading it knows that, but I don't like euphemisms/language games that divorce consumers from the choice to eat an animal that was killed for you.

goda90• 8 years ago

I'm not seeing any euphemisms or language games. In English, chicken both means the animal and the meat, so there is no game in calling dead chickens just chickens.

loco5niner2• 8 years ago

No language games.

It's clear that the chickens will be killed and eaten.

There is nothing wrong with killing and eating chickens as long as its done in a responsible manner.

mx24• 8 years ago

Responsible or sustainable animal agriculture is a pipe dream at this point. With 7+ billion people on a planet facing environmental destruction it’s irresponsible to advocate for the consumption of meat.

smsm422• 8 years ago

Anybody who knows what Costco is knows what these chickens are for - for eating. What else could they be for - recreating all Hollywood movies with all-chicken cast? I thing demanding that media would push anti-meat propaganda into every article mentioning animal-derived food is a bit too far. I mean, you have the right to your opinions and your consumer behavior, but nobody is obliged to share them and propagandize them for you.

devonkim• 8 years ago

Costco is on a supply chain shakedown it seems because they’re also making an eyewear factory for similar business reasons as with chicken.

Being in Georgia I see some of these chicken trucks full of live and dead chickens and while they’re pretty dumb and dirty birds there’s no question that the birds in the system are suffering terribly. On top of that is the human suffering of the farmers that raise them in the kind of financial conditions they’re subjected to.

I’m fine paying substantially more for better treated chicken but the issue is that I have few guarantees that this is happening when I choose some labels over another given how convoluted the US agriculture and FDA system is.

debacle• 8 years ago

They likely just hit an inflection point where it started making sense to do their own fab.

chrischen• 8 years ago

It says monopoly byt then lists 3 other competitors. Are they all colluding?

oblib5• 8 years ago

I am surrounded by chicken farms, and the farmers who own and operate them. Almost all of them are family owned farms who sell to Tyson.

I can say with confidence that they work hard and are very diligent in maintaining a high standard of quality.

It's a false sense of higher morality to claim "ethical reasons" for not buying those chicken. You aren't saving or improving the lives of any chickens when you do that.

And those chickens don't have it all that bad. I also raise my own chickens and they have a great life for a chicken but it's not idyllic. Chickens have always been low on the food chain and here where I live there are a lot of chicken eaters that are not human.

As for safe and organic feed, we all want that, even my neighbors who are chicken farmers. Right now that's still easier said than done. Costco's move may help lead/push us that direction and I commend them for leading on this issue.

ceejayoz2• 8 years ago

It's a false sense of higher morality to claim "ethical reasons" for not buying those chicken. You aren't saving or improving the lives of any chickens when you do that.

Consumer pressure has made a variety of improvements in animal welfare, and is likely to continue to do so.

hyperbovine• 8 years ago

I don't understand why this comment is being downvoted. This is undeniably true. Heck, the industry itself freely admits this. E.g.:

https://www.beefmagazine.com/beef-quality/consumers-not-scie...

https://www.unileverusa.com/news/press-releases/2017/hellman...

specialist• 8 years ago

"It's a false sense of higher morality to claim "ethical reasons" for not buying those chicken."

Who are you (bunny ear) quoting?

Costco's investment is to get better pricing.

jMyles3• 8 years ago

It's a false sense of higher morality to claim "ethical reasons" for not buying those chicken. You aren't saving or improving the lives of any chickens when you do that.

I don't see how this statement can be held with confidence to be true.

If I buy chicken whose precise provenance is known, and which are raised in humane conditions with high-quality feed, with a process that is minimally negatively (or, ideally, positively) environmentally impactful, then indeed there is an ethical gain in doing so.

If I buy from Tyson, I have no way of knowing any of this. Nor does Tyson even claim that I can know these things.

Falling3• 8 years ago

If I buy chicken whose precise provenance is known, and which are raised in humane conditions with high-quality feed

We're talking morals and we're surely going to have some differences in opinion, but I don't see how raising animals who've been selectively bred to grow an order of magnitude faster and larger than they would naturally, kept indoors for most of their lives, and killed at less than 1% of their potential lifespan could ever be considered "humane". Especially when their consumption is wholly unnecessary.

mbesto3• 8 years ago

As for safe and organic feed,

I'm all for "safe" feed, but assigning "organic = safe" is disingenuous. Like it or not (because the studies are not conclusive), but GMO is the only current way we know how to scale food production.

colordrops3• 8 years ago

GMO is the only current way we know how to scale food production.

That can't be true. Do you have a source?

codeulike• 8 years ago

It's a false sense of higher morality to claim "ethical reasons" for not buying those chicken. You aren't saving or improving the lives of any chickens when you do that.

Yes you are. Every dollar is like a little vote. The things that everyone puts dollars into will grow, and the things that they dont, wont.

aristophenes2• 8 years ago

This is really confusing. When the top 5 companies control 2/3 the market, how is that a monopoly? The biggest company is less than 25%.

Anyway, the fact that I can walk into a store (not just Costco, I do this elsewhere) and buy a fully prepared, seasoned, cooked, ready-to-eat, warm, entire chicken for 5 US dollars blows my mind. We don't understand how good we have it. Most of us here on HN can exchange the money we get for less than 10 minutes of work for the aforementioned culinary delight. We're not talking about a bowl of porridge here, this is protein-packed meat. I've been around the world. Everyone (who eats meat at all) loves chicken. We live in paradise.

I can understand ethical and environmental concerns, but we have to be doing something right here.

antisthenes• 8 years ago

Agreed, rotisserie chicken is the 8th wonder of the world.

Nice nickname, btw.

bg0• 8 years ago

Just moved to Montreal from the US. Was astounded that chicken price per pound is 5x the price it is back home.

immichaelwang• 8 years ago

Does anyone have recommendations on good documentaries in this space?

mistrial9• 8 years ago

I recall seeing the "giant chicken vacuum" in a documentary once..that was a new low for me.. it is 10 or 12 feet high, but somewhat like a vacuum with a big bag for the birds, and a pole sweeps across a measured, enclosed area such that none of the birds escape.. what comes next is also in that movie.. mercifully I do not recall the name..

sky_rw• 8 years ago

Netflix documentary mini-series Rotten has a really great episode on this.

tokyodude• 8 years ago

You can eat raw chicken at many if not most izakaya (Japanese tapas) in Japan. Tastes great!!

No idea if that means Japanese chicken production is safer or if it's just their food culture is more risky like France's

Costco opening a $440M chicken farm to escape America's chicken monopoly

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