Robin's Nest from American Humane - Celebrating the Holidays with Compassion: A Conversation with Butterball

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

In this episode of Robin's Nest, Dr. Robin Ganzert is joined by Dr. Alice Johnson, Senior Vice President of Food Safety, Quality, and Animal Care at Butterball, for an inspiring conversation about Butterball's unwavering commitment to animal welfare. Dr. Johnson highlights the company’s adherence to the Five Freedoms of Animal Welfare and their strict zero-tolerance policies to ensure their turkeys' safety and humane treatment.The discussion explores Butterball’s forward-thinking initiatives to enhance the care and comfort of their birds, underscoring the importance of continuous improvement in animal welfare standards.With the holiday season upon us, Dr. Ganzert and Dr. Johnson reflect on how families can celebrate traditions—like enjoying turkey dinners—while supporting humane practices. This heartwarming episode offers listeners insights into how they can make conscious choices for their holiday tables, embodying compassion and care for animals. 

Welcome to Robins Nest. Many of us feel a deep bond with animals, from the pets we cherish at home to the endangered species in nature. Join us for lively, informative conversations where together we will build a more humane world. Today I'm thrilled to welcome Dr. Alice Johnson, a remarkable advocate for animal welfare. Dr. Johnson is the senior vice president of food safety, regulatory, and animal well-being at Butterball. She plays a key role in ensuring the highest standards of care, safety, and ethical responsibility in food production. With over 30 years of experience in the poultry industry. She's been a driving force behind Butterball's success and at the forefront of innovations that not only improve food safety but also set new benchmarks for animal welfare across the

industry. Dr. Johnson, Alice, so great to have you here. You have been just a leader in the poultry space. You have been an innovator with Butterball. You've certainly been an incredible advocate for the animals. You're one of those pivotal people that when people talk about animal welfare, animal agriculture, they talk about Dr. Alice Johnson. So please share with us a little bit about Butterball's dedication to animal welfare from your voice. Well, Robin, thank you so much for having me on Robin's Nest. I think this is so exciting.

You're in the nest today. We're in the nest. How fun. I want to talk about Butterball's commitment. We consider ourselves to be a leader in the animal care and well-being space. We do that to assure that the trust our consumers put in this brand is well represented.

One of the things we do also as far as brand reputation is we have certain core principles, core values that we carry through throughout the company. One of those is doing the right thing. The other, and is our top priority, is the safety of our people, our products, and our turkeys. In order to do the right thing for our turkeys, you have to evaluate every step of their lives throughout production. We have made it a point in our original plans, Animal Care and Well-being plans, to go beyond industry standard. We realized that wasn't enough. We had to push ourselves. In doing that, we looked at the five freedoms of animal welfare, which I know the AHA is based on as well.

And you know these were established in 1960, but they're still very well respected and internationally recognized. Yes. Freedom from hunger and thirst, freedom from discomfort, freedom from pain, injury and disease, freedom to exhibit normal behavior, and then of course freedom from fear and distress. Yes. We also recognized as part of our program the need to go beyond and do a third-party audit. We were one of the first to partner with, back then USDA, this was pre AHA, USDA, United States Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Marketing Service. We had government representatives come on our farms,

come in our facilities, and audit. At that point, they were looking to see we were doing what our program said we were doing. How long ago was that 20-some years ago, 25 years ago? Oh now we're telling ages. A little while back. Yeah, a little while back. That was it had to be we came in with AHA in 2013. So it was around 2011. 11. Okay, so a decade ago plus. Yeah, and it was just a natural transition to move from that into American Humane Association and looking at moving our programs up to the science-based, peer-reviewed standards that AHA had for certification.

It was a great transition for us. We also believe in Butterball that you know our zero policy, zero tolerance for any type of mistreatment. We do extensive training as is required under the audit, under the criteria, and we train our contract farms, which they're about a little over 600. All of our associates, our contract hatcheries and anybody within the facility has to be trained or if they contract with Butterball. They have to understand the zero tolerance policy and they have to understand that they're responsible for reporting should they see something they perceive as

mistreatment. They are told in orientation, there are signs all over the buildings as well as the farms. We actually, and AHA helped us get this, an 800 for bird care number that individuals can call if they perceive mistreatment and they're not comfortable going to their direct supervisors. They can call that number without any fear of retaliation. It's all confidential. A hotline. Yeah, a hotline. A good old-fashioned hotline. Bird care hotline. I love that. And it allows us to go out and investigate to be sure that we are doing what is right for the birds and ensuring the safety of our birds. Well, it's quite comprehensive what's been created through the Butterball program. And what I have to say is, as we think about holidays and we think about so much of our

Americana life, we think about the Butterball turkey. So I really... Perfect. You know, it's always, that's what the brand is. The brand equals an Americana family holiday, a home. It's generation to generation learning how to make the best family turkey, right, and all the conversations about the recipes for the turkey. It's the centerpiece of so many of our family reunions and holidays and very special times and Butterball's been that for years and years and years, hasn't it? Our purpose is to pass love on the generations teaching people how to do the bird, teach getting the family together. That's all a part of the Butterball.

And I have to brag, I'm very, very proud of this. Statistics say that one in every three turkeys that will be the centerpiece of the 2024 Thanksgiving meal will be a butterball. One out of three. I love it. Now, Robin, how better can we assure a humane table for our consumers? I just think it's awesome. I think it's absolutely awesome because I know exactly what you do to ensure that, too.

And you know, you talked about it and you speak so eloquently about all the different standards being implemented, the care, the training, the employee training, the culture, and then to carry it through with a hotline. You know, all of that reinforces your core values at Butterball throughout It really does. 600 farms with the different employees and the like. It's wonderful to be commended and then to take it to the level beyond USDA

into a voluntarily third-party audit is incredible. When I think about Butterball and I think about all the incredible family dinner tables, all those types of conversations. I think about the important work of animal protein choices that a family makes every day. And families, moms or dads, when they go to the grocery store and are looking for those proteins, there's been a push for more poultry and the health. And Butterball's expanded a product for more poultry and the health and butterballs expanded a product line like no other. So me who has to watch such things as see the

cholesterol board. I love your butterball breakfast sausages. I mean it's so nice to know and for appetizers the the cabalca it's just all incredible in terms of the expansion of butterball from the... Beyond the whole bird into our ground turkey, our turkey bacon, our turkey tenderloins. And healthy, so healthy. And we put all of our packaging has the American Humane logo on it. As part of what we want, consumers want to feel good about what they're eating, right? We have our logo, there's actually

a link. The interested consumers can click on that link and it goes to the American Humane Association website, even down to look at the turkey standards that we hold our company to. I think that's awesome. Transparency builds consumer trust. Butterball already had the consumer trust with this incredible Thanksgiving holiday, Christmas holiday, any sort of holiday celebration. But then you're carrying it through 365 days a year

with product offerings that really align with consumers' interest in humane treatment and the values of health, too, as alternatives for animal protein, too, that may be more healthy or has proven to be more healthy. We certainly believe that. Yeah, it's really wonderful. And our family eats a lot of ground butterball turkey, too, which is great for chilies and all sorts of recipes. And one of the things on the transparency, the third party audits.

Now we definitely view those audits as something that are consumer facing. As you know, and as of 2024, right now as we speak, the auditors have been in close to 450 turkey barns, right? They've been in our facilities, they've been in our to 450 turkey barns, right? They've been in our facilities, they've been in our contract hatcheries and observed our contract loading crews, right? As part of those audits, as you know,

you have to have a certain score to be certified. Yes. We require all of our contract farmers, all our facilities, all our contractors to meet that or they cannot produce for Butterball. They cannot be associated with butterball. As part of that audit, American Humane keeps the database. Yes, we do. The audits and the scores are all in there and American Humane is in charge of that database and if we have customers that want to see the audits

including the scores, they can go to American Humane and they can pull those up. Talk about transparency. Yeah. And talk about doing all the steps right to build the consumer faith and trust. It's incredible. It's remarkable. You know, we talked about why is American Humane Certified so valuable for Butterball,

clearly consumer trust and transparency. Well, it's also helped us. I mean, we have grown as a company because of our experience with American Humane. And I'd like to think not only Butterball, but other parts of the industry have grown as well as we look at these standards and we work together to do the research to get to the next step as new things come available that we need to be looking at. So I wanted to talk to you about new things.

Beyond certification, which I know has been a core value and it also is important for your customers too, what future initiatives or improvements in animal care is Butterball focusing on? Oh my goodness. We are on the move. Have some really good folks working within Butterball that are constantly looking, we need to explore this, we need to explore that.

We also do a lot of work with universities. We supply the farms, we supply if they need birds, we give them whatever they need to help with their research. One of the things that we do, and again I'm going to brag on us, is one of the first we put cameras out in our barns for loading. This has been so amazing from an animal care and well-being to look at treatment, but also to look at gaps that there may be in research on how we're handling these birds and what we're doing and that has been one of the things we're focusing on is to you know what do we do

differently to make the bird more comfortable during that process. We also we've been really transportation and loading focus. I want to stop you there and remind our listeners how big is a turkey versus a chicken. Because when I think people, you know, they don't really know the difference. A turkey's a big bird. Yes. No, you know the joke. We play it on you all the time.

We are not a big chicken, right? And that's one of the things that we've done with a lot of the research and working with your group, with American Humane. A lot of the standards were not established for turkeys on a science-based method. They were more for the chicken guys, the little birds. Our turkeys will be between 46 to 50 pounds. Some of the smaller ones will run between,

from the butterball little ones that are 12 to 20 something, right? If it's a whole bird versus what we're doing for our further processed products. But one of the things we did back years ago was we looked at the loading, catching birds and worked with some of the researchers and actually had a peer-reviewed article that helped to establish this is what you need to think about when you're looking, working with the bigger bird. Yes. But we are not big chickens. I love that. No big chicken talk here. No big chickens. Yeah, no. We only talk turkey. I, I, you're a Turk-a-tarian too, right? We're Turk-a-tarians. Everybody be a Turk-a-tarian. We can go on for like the next hour on turkey jokes. We can do turkey jokes, yeah.

I love it. But your innovation is, back to your innovation, is significant in how you've really driven excellence in the industry. And that's been Butterball's culture and devoted to this too, to expanding that scientific body of evidence on the humane treatment of animals that we've built goes and pays it forward to anybody who wants to, because as peer review research is done, it's put out there in the open. So that allows-

For everybody to take advantage of, yes. Not just in our country, but indeed around the world to uplift the standards of care, and you've helped to lead that effort. And that's one thing I, you know, I appreciate the opportunity that we as Butterball have had to work with American Humane and to look at some of the gaps within the treatment and to try to figure out ways either through researchers or what we could do within our company to cover some of these.

Science is evolving. I think our partnership with American Humane has really been great for Butterball and as I said, and you were commenting, the whole industry. The whole industry and again not just in our country but indeed around the world we've uplifted the standards of care in partnership together which is fantastic. So now we have to pivot to one of the most important conversations we have at our household at this time of year. Do you eat the leg or the breast? What do you eat on the turkey?

You eat everything and you enjoy every bite. But what about you? Because there's only two legs on our turkey. Are you gonna be, we have people fighting over those legs right now. I like the white meat. The white meat, okay good. Well you're welcome to come to our house for thanks.

Oh no, because I'm not going to take your leg, right? No one's going to take a leg, and we've got someone else on the other leg who calls dibs every year. It's so much fun, though. Well, Alice, you are such a joy. Thank you for being a leader in the space. Thank you for all you've done to improve the treatment of millions and millions of animals. It's really so important for us to have this conversation to educate so many people in Robin's Nest.

We don't often talk about animals and food production, and we need to talk more about it because it's how we can really show what it is to be humane. The awareness of what's happening going on, and again, appreciate what we as Butterball, and American Humane have done, and certainly look forward to where we're going to go.

That's right. Thank you so much for being part of Robins Nest and importantly for setting the humane table every day. Thank you. Thanks for listening to Robins Nest. I hope you enjoyed today's conversation and learned more about the work we're doing to protect animals everywhere. Don't forget to stay connected with us at American Humane. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn at American Humane. And if you're not already subscribed, make sure to follow Robin's Nest so you never miss an episode. Thanks again and remember every act of kindness makes a difference.