00:00:00,100 –> 00:00:55,960 [Speaker 0]
[upbeat music] Welcome to the Popular Pig Podcast, a convenient place where you can stay up-to-date on what’s popular in the swine industry. By listening to Popular Pig, you will receive invaluable information on the latest trends, news, and research from various experts who guide the global pork industry. Popular Pig is brought to you by SwineTech, the award-winning creators of Smart Guard and Pig Flow. To learn how Pig Flow can help you streamline your workforce and reduce piglet and sow deaths, visit swinetechnologies.com. [upbeat music] Popular Pig is also made possible by the National Pork Board, Farm Credit Services of America, Clipper Distributing Company, Hyfor Genetics, Mini Tube, Brenneman Pork, Romaine, Zinpro, SwineWeb, PIC North America, Swine Robotics, Neogen, Innovative Heating, and pigequipment.com, brought to you by American Resources.
00:00:55,960 –> 00:01:02,000 [Speaker 1]
Welcome to the Popular Pig Podcast. I’m your host, Matthew Rhoda, and joining me today is Chad Yoder. How are you doing, Chad?
00:01:02,000 –> 00:01:04,060 [Speaker 2]
I’m good, Matthew. Thanks for having me.
00:01:04,060 –> 00:01:26,020 [Speaker 1]
So today, excited to talk to you about your business at home and, and the work you’re doing there, and I think that’ll naturally lead into a few industry-type conversations that are gonna be pretty fun. And so if you wouldn’t mind just leading off by giving us a background of yourself and how you got into the swine industry and what your farm looks like today.
00:01:26,020 –> 00:02:10,220 [Speaker 2]
Yeah. You know, I grew up on a farrow-to-finish farm in southeast Iowa. Dad was… had 100 sows, raising them out on dirt lots, finishing the pigs on old Cargill-type units outside the barn on concrete, those sort of things. And so I grew up in that, decided I loved raising the pigs and wanted to be a pig farmer my whole life. And just when it got down to it, Dad kind of sat me down and said, “Hey, we’re…” He was a second-generation farmer, and, uh, had split the, my grandpa’s farm with his brother. Said, “Hey, you, there’s probably not enough here for two families, so you’re gonna probably just need to go find something else.” And so I thought, “Well, I love working with animals, love working with pigs, I’ll be a veterinarian,” ’cause all I… ’cause that’s all you knew as a kid, right? The vet-
00:02:10,220 –> 00:02:10,380 [Speaker 1]
Right
00:02:10,380 –> 00:02:10,949 [Speaker 2]
… came to your farm.
00:02:10,949 –> 00:02:13,500 [Speaker 1]
That’s the logical next step. Let’s go be a vet.
00:02:13,500 –> 00:02:41,160 [Speaker 2]
Yeah, yeah. The vet was always at your farm. He was trying to fix all your problems. You thought, “That’s pretty cool.” So I decided I wanted to go to vet school, and I got to Iowa State and, and enjoyed my classes, enjoyed all that stuff, but just kind of kept finding myself circling back to certain classes and certain people that were more focused on animal, you know, swine production. Uh, and, and they happened to focus on the genetics of it. So I ended up, uh, decided not to go to vet school,
00:02:42,300 –> 00:04:09,260 [Speaker 2]
uh, went to do my master’s in swine genetics at North Carolina State University, came back to Iowa State. Met, I actually met my wife, who’s from Indiana, in North Carolina. She was doing her master’s down there as well. So met her, brought her back to Iowa, went back to Ames, got my PhD as in swine production and genetics. I, I still work in the industry today, doing more focus on data analytics. F- It allows me to really focus in on my farm. And really, I tell you that all about th- my background from school there because when I was at Iowa State, I, I worked with Dr. Tom Baas. I was coming in at the very end of his genetic selection, you know, generation of selection for IMF, for intramuscular fat. And he did that with the Duroc pig. And so I got to go in at the end when it was kind of transitioning back to just raising good hogs and be a part of scanning pigs and testing and all those things. And when I graduated, I told my wife, said, “Someday we’re gonna have a Duroc sow herd, and we’re gonna sell pork to our friends and family. It’s gonna be really high quality, high IMF, high marbling, and we’re gonna build a farm.” Well, couple years later, had a couple kids. We decide, “Okay, it’s kinda now or never.” So my dad had, had retired from the pig business in 2008 and cleaned everything up and had no flies, no anything at the house, so he’s really happy. And, uh-
00:04:09,260 –> 00:04:09,270 [Speaker 1]
[laughs]
00:04:09,270 –> 00:04:48,450 [Speaker 2]
… in 2019, we brought, bought our first Duroc gilts, bought them from a legendary Duroc breeder out of South Dakota, Ron Nelson, uh, who has since, uh, passed, but just had phenomenal pigs and, and some of the, some of the best Durocks I’ve, that have probably ever come in the breed. So we had the privilege of buying some animals from him. Brought them home and started over. And we currently, right now, we run 20 whole sows. And Ma- Matthew, we were talking earlier, I was listening to Dwight’s Mogler’s podcast with you, and they were on the cutting edge and innovation and all those things, and w- and we’re trying to take our farm back to the 1970s here. So we’re going the opposite direction.
00:04:48,450 –> 00:04:48,479 [Speaker 1]
[laughs]
00:04:48,480 –> 00:06:02,020 [Speaker 2]
We’re trying, you know, we’re weighing, we’re weighing nine pigs a litter and feel really good about that on these Duroc, and we’re raising them outside, and we’re farrowing in pens. And, uh, you know, we are using AI and some of the g- you know, some of those good technologies, but it’s really a farm that’s… Our focus is not necessarily to produce the most pork or make it as affordable as possible. It’s to raise a product that requires a premium purchase price from, and, and is worthy of that purchase price. And we, we are diversified in our, kind of our revenue streams. We sell feeder pigs to others that wanna raise a few. We do sell some breeding stock. Our foundation is our local walkers, where we’re selling half and whole hogs to folks. And then kind of more recently, we’re in the retail business, where we’re selling to some nicer steakhouses and restaurants like that. And then we’ve got our pork sticks, which I know Dwight talked about his pork sticks, and it, it is, is amazing when people try those. They call them beef sticks every time. But then they think it, “This is way better than any beef stick I’ve ever had.” Uh, and so we do, we’re working with some Hy-Vees, local Hy-Vees on that, uh, front. And, uh, we’re just kind of seeing that when you have good pork, uh, people will flock to it.
00:06:02,020 –> 00:06:19,496 [Speaker 1]
So- How can you explain the difference between kinda that pure line show pig world and, uh, the work you’re doing direct to consumer versus what you know through all your experience and the, the more modern
00:06:20,956 –> 00:06:22,576 [Speaker 1]
way we raise pigs?
00:06:22,576 –> 00:06:22,856 [Speaker 2]
Yeah, so-
00:06:22,856 –> 00:06:25,726 [Speaker 1]
How different are the two, uh, now that you’re kinda living
00:06:26,736 –> 00:06:29,316 [Speaker 1]
two vastly different worlds?
00:06:29,316 –> 00:06:51,536 [Speaker 2]
Yeah, I think it’s, um, you know, I think what I would say is it’s, it truly feels like we’re living in the ’70s. I think I’ll take your show… You said, you mentioned show pigs. When everybody hears that we raise Durocs and we’re a small farm, the first question that comes out is, “Oh, so you’re show pigs?” Or the first comment, and it’s like, nope, because we have a very different goal, right? Show pi- we don’t care if our pig looks pretty and all that stuff.
00:06:51,536 –> 00:06:51,606 [Speaker 1]
Sure.
00:06:51,606 –> 00:07:04,396 [Speaker 2]
Um, we want our pigs to have the production behind them. They need to grow fast, they need to be hardy, they need to lay down and do their job. Uh, even though they’re Durocs and they, we know they’re not gonna lay down and have 17 total born, right? But we… They need to lay down and do it and, and produce a litter.
00:07:05,476 –> 00:09:07,376 [Speaker 2]
So it’s, it’s kind of similar in the regards to that to what I would con- consider kind of our mainstream conventional production systems. Now, the biggest difference is we’re giving so much up in efficiencies of just, we know it. We can’t produce like, like that. Um, and being a small farm, we give up a lot of efficiencies otherwise. But I think we probably lean towards the fundamentals of a more conventional system. The biggest difference is we know, right, and you know this Matthew, the genetic selection and the reason we have use hybrid pigs, right, is the reason that the sires are Duroc and are, we have a maternal line York Landrace or Large White Landrace type cross, is we can take a, we can take advantage of heterosis. We can select for different traits in different lines, put them all together, and we optimize what that pig looks like. And so I do think, you know, we focus on the purebreds just because it’s a little… We’re, we’re fortunate where we can do a little bit of how we wanna do it and not necessarily have to do something different to meet somebody else’s need. We get to kind of build our own model a little bit, so we’re, we’re fortunate in that respect. But when you see some of the, you know… I think there’s, there’s evidence of a lot of people that do it really well, where they’re doing a Duroc sire on a York Landrace female and still producing that high quality, uh, pork chop that maybe has more marbling, has a little darker color, and we’re seeing that kind of improve with some of the, the genetic lines out there in the commercial world. And so they still get the kind of the best of both worlds. They’re getting more production on the maternal side, and then they’re getting, uh, the growth and the, the meat quality on that Duroc side. I do, I think I’m, I’m biased of course, but I think that the purebred Duroc, when you select for it, can, can be extremely high in all those metrics and all those traits. And so I think that’s where we kind of differentiate a little bit, is we are very focused on those, where we’re not trying to worry about, as much about feed efficiency and some of those things that we still need in terminal sires in the commercial industry today. So I think that’s what differentiates it a little bit, but I definitely think we align quite a bit closer to that world than we would the show pig side for sure. [laughs]
00:09:07,376 –> 00:09:14,776 [Speaker 1]
Gotcha. The, the def- definition of success is more aligned with conventional production than a, a show pig, uh, scenario.
00:09:14,776 –> 00:09:15,036 [Speaker 2]
Correct.
00:09:15,036 –> 00:09:24,166 [Speaker 1]
And, and it sounds like, yeah, flavor, meat quality, I mean, you’re optimizing for that more than what you are more pigs out the door-
00:09:24,166 –> 00:09:24,166 [Speaker 2]
Yeah
00:09:24,166 –> 00:09:28,606 [Speaker 1]
… on, on a per sale basis. And feed efficiency, like you said. Wait, can you talk-
00:09:28,606 –> 00:09:28,606 [Speaker 2]
Yeah
00:09:28,606 –> 00:09:44,076 [Speaker 1]
… a little bit about your interactions with the restaurants that want to take your product and put it on their menus? Is that in places like Iowa City or is that in places like Kyoto? Like, are, are we talking-
00:09:44,076 –> 00:09:44,756 [Speaker 2]
Yeah, yeah
00:09:44,756 –> 00:09:48,776 [Speaker 1]
… like, what’s that market look like and how have those interactions been and, and what have you learned from them?
00:09:50,476 –> 00:10:15,596 [Speaker 2]
Yeah, I think, you know, it was interesting. The way we started the retail side of this, and we still have it, we’ve got an online marketplace. We don’t, we don’t go do the farmer’s markets and those sort of things, just because of the amount of time investing in those and stuff. So it really is an online presence and w- and that really was a struggle for us, ’cause people would tell you online like, “Oh, we love the way you raise your pigs,” and we can talk about that statement in a minute. But-
00:10:15,596 –> 00:10:16,125 [Speaker 1]
[laughs]
00:10:16,125 –> 00:10:42,696 [Speaker 2]
… but they wouldn’t convert that into a sale, ’cause you’d tell them like, “Hey, I’ve got more cost in raising this pig ’cause I’m not as efficient. My locker’s more expensive. It’s, it’s not, they’re not as efficient when they’re outside and it’s 10 below zero in Iowa, or it’s 95 degrees and, and you gotta go put sprinkler… ” You know, we just don’t have those efficiencies, so our cost of production is much higher, so we need to return a little more. So people weren’t converting that into a sale. They loved the idea, but they weren’t converting it to sale. And so-
00:10:42,696 –> 00:10:43,996 [Speaker 1]
Like, good for you.
00:10:44,276 –> 00:10:44,866 [Speaker 2]
Yeah. [laughs]
00:10:44,866 –> 00:10:45,896 [Speaker 1]
Bye. [laughs]
00:10:45,896 –> 00:10:48,596 [Speaker 2]
Yeah, exactly. You’re doing awesome. Good, good luck with it.
00:10:48,596 –> 00:10:48,966 [Speaker 1]
[laughs]
00:10:48,966 –> 00:11:43,016 [Speaker 2]
Um, and so I would talk to restaurants and, and quite frankly they’d be like, “Yeah, we’d love to try it.” And so, um, and some of them didn’t wanna talk to you too much about it. And, and what I’ve learned is the only way to really sell something i- on quality is to just drop it in their lap and say, “Try it.” And, and so I think what, um, what we found is, now this is where again we come back, and I, I, I loved hearing that Dwight Moger s- uh, ’cause, uh, something that resonated with me, he says his goal is to get to where he’s buying back primals or 80% of the pig. For me, being so small, I gotta use… My locker’s like, “We don’t want any of it. You gotta take 100% of it.” And so like these restaurants, they love the loins, they love the bellies, they love the shoulders, and those, those we can get rid of very quickly. Nobody wants a ham outside of Easter and Christmas or Thanksgiving. It’s very hard for me to-
00:11:43,016 –> 00:11:43,026 [Speaker 1]
Yeah
00:11:43,026 –> 00:11:46,526 [Speaker 2]
… s- or at least for me, right? For me to sell a ham. Uh, and so-
00:11:46,526 –> 00:11:48,536 [Speaker 1]
Does that mean you eat a lot of ham?
00:11:48,536 –> 00:11:50,846 [Speaker 2]
You gotta eat a lot of ham. Well, I grind everything.
00:11:50,846 –> 00:11:50,856 [Speaker 1]
[laughs]
00:11:50,856 –> 00:11:51,256 [Speaker 2]
And so
00:11:52,616 –> 00:12:43,344 [Speaker 2]
we, we’ve, we’ve started working, finding… You have to find outlets for that. And what we’ve focused on is we’ve, we kind of think, well, everybody likes breakfast sausage and chorizos and stuff, so we’ve got some of that, and some of that goes to certain markets. Here in Iowa, you tell people barbecue pork burger, and everybody goes, “Oh yeah, I know exactly what that is.” You get outside of, like, Iowa, even my wife, I told her when we were dating, this is a long, long, long, long time ago, I said, “You gotta try these pork burgers.” And she, she wrinkled her nose and said, “I don’t want a pork burger. They’re not very good.” And then I gave her some of the stuff that we were raising, and she’s like, “This is some of the greatest stuff I’ve ever had.” And so I think getting people to try stuff is really big. And we found… So we’ve got the high-end steakhouses, right? That are buying the pork chops, and the bellies, and doing some things. We’ve got a couple restaurants that are putting a pork burger next to their hamburger, and those are doing really well. And we’ve got-
00:12:43,384 –> 00:12:46,344 [Speaker 1]
Wh- where, where is that? Uh, just to put in here because-
00:12:46,344 –> 00:13:08,704 [Speaker 2]
The one… Yeah, the one that is, uh, I’ll shout them out, is Iowa’s Best Burger Cafe. It’s Exit 173 off of 80. It’s an old gas station diner, and some of the greatest hamburgers, and french fries, and milkshakes you’ll find, and so they’ve got our pork burger on the menu there. It’s one of those true hole-in-the-walls. It’s just awesome, like an old diner feel, and it’s, it’s a great place. I highly recommend-
00:13:08,704 –> 00:13:10,923 [Speaker 1]
That’s between Grinnell and Newton, right?
00:13:10,924 –> 00:13:34,584 [Speaker 2]
Yes. Yep. Yeah. It’s, uh, it’s got a campground on it, and it’s, it’s a, it’s an, it’s a unique place, but it’s, it’s really cool. So we got a couple places like that. That’s kind of the first one that did that, and are our biggest supporter from the pork burger side of it. And then we’ve, we’ve got pork sticks and pork jerky. We’re several different flavors that we’re putting into s- about, uh, I think we’re in about 10 Hy-Vees now in Eastern Iowa.
00:13:34,584 –> 00:13:34,604 [Speaker 1]
Very cool.
00:13:34,604 –> 00:13:59,084 [Speaker 2]
And so it’s really creating those markets to, to, uh, have the, the places to go with that, so you’re not sitting on a lot of that ground pork, or trying to add value to it, so it’s not just a loss leader, right? Um, and so another place, uh, and I’ll, I’ll shout out another restaurant that I know, Matthew, you’ve, you’ve been to, is Barrett’s Quality Eats there in-
00:13:59,084 –> 00:13:59,124 [Speaker 1]
Yeah
00:13:59,124 –> 00:14:47,404 [Speaker 2]
… Elworth City. They buy a lot of ground pork from us to make their sausage. And, um, one day I just stopped in there and said, “Hey, I got a box of pork in the back of the truck. You wanna try it?” And they did, and now they’re buying quite a bit of ground pork from us. Uh, and they buy pork sirloin steaks, and some different cuts and stuff, and, um, uh, some loin racks and things, too, for different peo- But their staple is that ground pork. And I know everybody talks about this. Ground pork is just very underappreciated [laughs] in this world. And when you get it in the hands of good chefs that are creative, they can do some really awesome stuff with it. And that’s what I’ve found, is just finding guys and, and gals that are just really focused on doing really good stuff, and trying different things, that are creative, and they can do a… If you have a good quality product, then they can take it and run with it.
00:14:47,404 –> 00:14:50,544 [Speaker 1]
So you talked about we love the way you raise your pigs,
00:14:51,684 –> 00:14:57,124 [Speaker 1]
and hitting that. When you are going to some of these, like a, like a Barrett’s-
00:14:57,124 –> 00:14:57,154 [Speaker 2]
Mm-hmm
00:14:57,154 –> 00:15:12,504 [Speaker 1]
… is the appeal, “Oh, you’re, you’re a smaller operation, raising your pigs this way,” or is the appeal, “Oh, I’m tasting your pro-“? Are they recognizing the quality difference, or is it
00:15:13,664 –> 00:15:17,314 [Speaker 1]
the sourcing that means the most to them?
00:15:17,314 –> 00:15:24,624 [Speaker 2]
Probably all of the above, but I’ll say this. I don’t tell people that I raise my pigs outside, ’cause I don’t think it matters, right?
00:15:24,624 –> 00:15:24,934 [Speaker 1]
[laughs]
00:15:24,934 –> 00:15:56,664 [Speaker 2]
Uh, the only reason people know that is I post a lot of videos on my Facebook. I’ve got a, a nice little following on Facebook, so I try to post videos of what we’re doing around the farm, ’cause I think people have this hunger to know where their food’s coming from, and understanding what you’re doing. So I can post videos of me, and I got… My kids love to be in them, doing stuff. Like, I’ve… My best video I ever did was my two sons moving a sow into the farrowing house. Something we think is very mundane, my kids do it all the time by themselves. Like, I was like, “Hey, I’ll just take a video of this.” And it got, like, 3 million views. And so it’s stuff like that-
00:15:56,664 –> 00:16:00,804 [Speaker 1]
Well, the background story, right? These kids are taking a, a sow-
00:16:00,804 –> 00:16:00,894 [Speaker 2]
Yeah
00:16:00,894 –> 00:16:05,914 [Speaker 1]
… into a dry place to give birth to a litter of piglets. Like, at its-
00:16:05,914 –> 00:16:06,184 [Speaker 2]
Yes
00:16:06,184 –> 00:16:11,164 [Speaker 1]
… at its essence, it’s a really cool thing that we take for granted.
00:16:11,164 –> 00:17:24,064 [Speaker 2]
Yeah. I, I mean, that’s just my everyday life, right? And my kids are just like, “Yep, just another day of helping Dad.” And so I think there’s this huge hunger. So I… But I’ve never… I don’t… My differentiation is our genetic program and kind of our goals, so that’s what I lead with. So I lead with… I go to a restaurant, I lead with, “Hey, I raise Duroc pigs, and I’m 20 minutes away from you. You need something, you can call me, and I’ll be the person that delivers it.” So it’s the quality of the pork, but then it’s that personal connection. And it, it’s… And then, you know, after you get to know them, and you’re like, “Hey, fall, you know, if you wanna see more or tell people whatever, we do this.” And they’re like, “Hey, I didn’t know you raised them outside.” And it’s like, well, ’cause I don’t think that matters. Um, I’ll be honest with you, Matthew, I get in more arguments with people on my Facebook page when they tell me, “Oh, you’re raising pigs the right way,” and, “Oh, that factory farming is terrible.” And I’m like, “No, no, no. There’s no such thing as factory farming. That’s, that’s this terrible misnomer.” And so I will argue day in and day out with anybody that li- will listen to me [laughs], and, and maybe they don’t even listen to me. But the swine industry, w- we have built today, is what is going to feed the populace, right? I’m a very niche market. I’m not trying to feed a lot of people. I need somebody that’s willing to-
00:17:24,064 –> 00:17:25,524 [Speaker 1]
And Barrett’s isn’t cheap.
00:17:25,524 –> 00:17:26,084 [Speaker 2]
Correct. Yes.
00:17:26,084 –> 00:17:29,664 [Speaker 1]
Right? You’re not going to Barrett’s for a cheap, quick meal. It’s-
00:17:29,664 –> 00:17:30,124 [Speaker 2]
Right
00:17:30,124 –> 00:17:31,504 [Speaker 1]
… more upscale.
00:17:31,504 –> 00:18:22,872 [Speaker 2]
Yes. And so if you, if you want to s- know those ingredients and, and s- like, have that story behind your ingredients, and know you’re, you know, you’re supporting local b- those sort of things, that’s where I’m trying to, to hit. I’m not trying to sell you the cheapest pork chop or the cheapest ground pork. I’m trying to sell you a high quality one that h- it has that story. But we need, in this c- in this country, in this world, we need to have cheap sources of high quality protein, and that’s what the farmers… I’ve got, you know… I look out my window, and I’ve got four finishers that I can see. And guess what? I know that the people who are in those barns are taking the same care for those animals that I do. And those animals are going to produce a high quality, high protein, dense source of food for a lot more people than I can ever dream of, right? You know-
00:18:22,872 –> 00:18:39,602 [Speaker 2]
I’m, I love going to talking to people and they’re like, “Yeah, 60 years ago my grandpa started with two sows as his 4-H project, and now we got 30,000 sows.” But I, I’m… I don’t have that goal or ambition. My ambition for our farm is truly, my dad’s a row cropper.
00:18:40,632 –> 00:19:06,672 [Speaker 2]
He’s gonna retire at some point. He’s 66. I got a 12-year-old son that loves farming, loves, lives it, breathes it. I would love to have a business model that he can come back, he can take over the row crop from grandpa, buy into that. I have a business model I can turn over to him or one of my other sons, I’ve got three of them, and one of them just takes it and runs, and he can take it and say, “I wanna go from 20 to 100 to 1,000,” to whatever, if, if he so chooses.
00:19:06,672 –> 00:19:08,732 [Speaker 1]
Yeah, the brand is there.
00:19:08,732 –> 00:19:09,342 [Speaker 2]
Yeah.
00:19:09,342 –> 00:19:09,372 [Speaker 1]
Yeah.
00:19:09,372 –> 00:19:45,512 [Speaker 2]
I just wanna have a business model that makes sense, and maybe we grow it a little bit, right? I’d love to, I’d love to grow maybe to 50 or 60 sows just to be able to supply more pork to some of these restaurants that want different things. Um, but there’s a whole nother set of issues where with getting financing to build what you need when you’re not building a conventional barn. That’s a lot easier. They, the banks know this is what a conventional barn costs, this is the ROI, ba-ba-bup, easier to get a loan. When you come with them with a dream of, “Hey, I raise pigs outside and I wanna build a canvas hoop barn to put my sows in,” they kinda go, “Well,
00:19:46,652 –> 00:20:08,212 [Speaker 2]
[laughs] 20 sows hard to pay for that.” It’s like, “Yeah, it is. But here’s the vision,” and, and it’s a little bit different than it was, you know, 30 years ago with that sort of stuff. So it’s, uh, it’s always a challenge to… There’s never, never a lack of challenges. And my wife will tell you I’m a dreamer. I, I, I dream about growing the business and changing it and adding everything, and it’s just, she’s a good reality check for me.
00:20:08,212 –> 00:20:19,511 [Speaker 1]
So you talked about the housing component. But what about when you talk quality? I think a lot of time when consumers hear quality, uh, they’re thinking, uh, nutritional value.
00:20:19,512 –> 00:20:19,602 [Speaker 2]
Yeah.
00:20:19,602 –> 00:20:23,132 [Speaker 1]
And I think what we’re talking is, is flavor and, uh-
00:20:23,132 –> 00:20:23,142 [Speaker 2]
Yeah
00:20:23,142 –> 00:20:31,512 [Speaker 1]
… eating experience. How, how consistent has your interaction been with your customers on what does quality mean?
00:20:31,512 –> 00:21:30,242 [Speaker 2]
Yeah. I, I think, you know, some people, you tell ’em, “I raise Duroc pigs,” and that is a foreign language to ’em, right? They don’t know a Duroc from a Labrador retriever. So y- it’s, it’s a little bit of education in that, and then you start to explain to ’em. You know, you get somebody like that and the first time they get a half pig from you they call you back and say, “This is great, but there’s a lot of fat in my pork.” You’re like, “Yeah, that’s what, that’s what we’re going for.” “And it’s a little darker. Is that okay?” “Yeah, it’s… We actually want it to be looking more like a steak, uh, than, than what you’d see e- sometime, you know, the, the other white meat kind of stuff.” So you get to have some education, uh, and some good discussions. Um, but you know, I’ll tell this story. My… When we got married, we served pork of course, and this is a long time ago. But my wife’s aunt came up to her and she said, “Hey, I just couldn’t eat that pork chop. It was just a little pink in the middle, and I just was worried I was gonna get sick.” And so we still have this misconception of how to cook pork.
00:21:30,242 –> 00:21:30,262 [Speaker 1]
Yeah.
00:21:30,262 –> 00:22:38,172 [Speaker 2]
And so I spend a lot of time talking about, hey, it’s, if you st- you know, if you start with a quality ingredient, then you don’t have to worry about it as much. But I think there’s still misconceptions on how to cook it, and so we’re talking… You know, we try to explain what marbling is, why it’s the darker color that may be a little bit different than what they’re used to. We talk about pH, water holding capacity. We talk about tenderness. We talk about how we’re out there and we ultrasound our pigs to look at IMF before we slaughter them on live ones, so we know genetically which ones to keep and which ones we don’t think are gonna be good enough to, to build upon for the next generation. And I think that’s… it is just an educational process where I think as with anything that’s maybe slightly different than mainstream, you just gotta take time and walk through it. And, and I love having those conversations. And, um, like I said, if, if we put… Generally speaking, if we put a pork chop or, uh, something in front of a restaurant or even in front of, you know, we drop off some samples of our pork steaks and stuff to the Hy-Vees, rarely do we have, “Oh, that wasn’t good. We don’t want it.” It’s more of just what’s the price point that can make it work.
00:22:38,172 –> 00:22:38,192 [Speaker 1]
Yeah.
00:22:38,192 –> 00:23:09,992 [Speaker 2]
And so it’s fun when, you know, you find somebody’s like a Barrett’s who they’re like, “Yeah, we know it’s more, and we don’t care because we think it’s worth it.” And it’s the same thing for them, right? If their customer has a great experience eating some sausage, says, “Man, that’s, that’s great sausage,” they’re gonna come back versus like, “Eh, that was sausage.” And so that’s where they have seen that and, and it builds their business, and we’re happy to be a part of, of working with them, even if we’re just a tiny little slice of it.
00:23:09,992 –> 00:23:18,782 [Speaker 1]
Yeah. And the more experiences you can create, then the more consistent the experience, and now the consumer can say, “Oh, maybe I can do this at home,” versus, “I have to go to Barrett-”
00:23:18,782 –> 00:23:18,782 [Speaker 2]
Yeah
00:23:18,782 –> 00:23:21,612 [Speaker 1]
… “to get, to get a good experience.” I was grilling-
00:23:21,612 –> 00:23:22,252 [Speaker 2]
Yeah
00:23:22,252 –> 00:23:33,432 [Speaker 1]
… pork chops this weekend with, uh, with some friends, and we ordered a couple half hogs over the past couple of years, and it was a Berk, Duroc, Mangalitsa kinda blend.
00:23:33,432 –> 00:23:33,452 [Speaker 2]
[laughs] Yeah.
00:23:33,452 –> 00:23:38,262 [Speaker 1]
And so a very interesting eating experience. And yeah-
00:23:38,262 –> 00:23:38,262 [Speaker 2]
Yeah
00:23:38,262 –> 00:23:44,262 [Speaker 1]
… definitely looks like a steak. Heck, it looked like picanha with the fat ring. And, um-
00:23:44,262 –> 00:23:44,262 [Speaker 2]
Yeah
00:23:44,262 –> 00:23:56,312 [Speaker 1]
… naturally people are asking like, “Why does this look so different? Is it okay?” And you can start to talk about genetics and everything else, and all of a sudden people are, like, connecting more accurately
00:23:57,332 –> 00:24:01,642 [Speaker 1]
what does better pork mean. And it’s not was it-
00:24:01,642 –> 00:24:01,651 [Speaker 2]
Mm-hmm
00:24:01,651 –> 00:24:04,152 [Speaker 1]
… indoors or outdoors. It-
00:24:04,152 –> 00:24:04,482 [Speaker 2]
Right
00:24:04,482 –> 00:24:09,232 [Speaker 1]
… what, what’s the genetics? ‘Cause a lot of times, “Oh, they’re just feeding them bad stuff,” and it’s like,
00:24:10,332 –> 00:24:30,666 [Speaker 1]
no, it’s, it’s a lot of it just genetics. And you start to walk through what that means and the different types of genetic lines and the traits that they, that they, that they show. And so as we’re eating this pig, you can kinda point out, you know, this is likely from the Mangalitsa. This is a bit of the Duroc. This is a little bit of the Berk. And- Um, all of a sudden-
00:24:30,666 –> 00:24:30,666 [Speaker 2]
Yep
00:24:30,666 –> 00:24:40,436 [Speaker 1]
… they’re like, “There’s far more here than the simple zingers that social media wanna throw out to make it sound like you shouldn’t eat pork.”
00:24:40,436 –> 00:25:02,156 [Speaker 2]
Yeah, and I mean, the, the funny, you know, I think it’s, it’s interesting. People just… We’ve got farmers that are similar to me, and this is what drives me crazy about my part of the world, right? It’s small niche farmers that the way they sell their pork is saying, “I’m not…” It’s, not to get political, but it’s basically like politics, right? “I’m not the other party.”
00:25:02,156 –> 00:25:02,356 [Speaker 1]
Right.
00:25:02,356 –> 00:25:28,775 [Speaker 2]
“So I don’t raise my pigs inside, and that’s bad for you, so you should buy my pork.” And that’s just stupid way of marketing, and to me, I just tell people, it’s like, “If you, if I ever have to market that way, it just means my pork’s not very good. It doesn’t differentiate itself from anything, and that’s the only way I can sell it.” But when we have people like Torken Sawyer Whistler that are in the barns showing you those pigs, that’s not, that’s not something that’s, you know, a set up. It- that’s real life, real-
00:25:28,776 –> 00:25:29,016 [Speaker 1]
That’s real
00:25:29,016 –> 00:25:39,626 [Speaker 2]
… in a barn. And it’s raising pigs just like I’m raising pigs. It’s a different environment, but it’s still raising pigs and taking care of them, and those pigs are gonna produce high-quality pork.
00:25:39,626 –> 00:25:39,626 [Speaker 1]
Yep.
00:25:39,626 –> 00:25:50,356 [Speaker 2]
And, and even… And I would say the quality from the metrics of we’re talking about of flavor and tenderness and, and marbling are getting better in those conventional pigs as they spend more time focusing on the genetics of that.
00:25:50,356 –> 00:25:50,826 [Speaker 1]
Yep.
00:25:50,826 –> 00:26:10,076 [Speaker 2]
And so I think that’s where we get, you know, we get some of these misconceptions, and people… You get farmers that are y- tearing each other down. And so then the consumer’s going, “Well, this farmer told me that it’s bad, but you’re saying it’s not,” and it’s, they’re… We’re confusing the consumer. And, and a lot of it’s just disappointing way to, to sell their pork.
00:26:10,076 –> 00:26:10,956 [Speaker 1]
It’s a shortcut-
00:26:10,956 –> 00:26:10,996 [Speaker 2]
Or beef or whoever
00:26:10,996 –> 00:26:13,796 [Speaker 1]
… to a sale as opposed to doing it the right way.
00:26:13,796 –> 00:26:24,436 [Speaker 2]
Yes. Yeah, yep. Rather than building a nice business model with a quality product, you’re… The quick way to the sale is to make yourself, you know, stand on top of somebody else’s shoulders to look taller kinda deal.
00:26:24,436 –> 00:26:36,876 [Speaker 1]
Yep. Yeah, no, actually doing a lot of those eating experiences with my wife has been pretty cool because she can’t stand more marbling and flavor.
00:26:36,876 –> 00:26:37,816 [Speaker 2]
[laughs]
00:26:37,816 –> 00:26:41,596 [Speaker 1]
For whatever reason, we, we get, uh, some of these
00:26:42,656 –> 00:26:52,856 [Speaker 1]
very marbled, very fatty, very flavor-forward steak-like experiences, and she’s like, “I like that.” And what she’s pointing to is what’s in the meat case, right?
00:26:52,856 –> 00:26:52,936 [Speaker 2]
Yeah.
00:26:52,936 –> 00:27:09,916 [Speaker 1]
The, the normal thing people are eating today. And so what that’s done is when we are with people, it, it definitely creates a conversation of one’s not morally or nutritionally superior, right? It’s like what, what is that experience you want, uh-
00:27:09,916 –> 00:27:10,156 [Speaker 2]
Yep
00:27:10,156 –> 00:27:22,286 [Speaker 1]
… from, from flavor a- and, uh, when you cook. And, uh, I think a lotta times people have no idea that it’s okay to choose what you’ve always had because you think that tastes good.
00:27:22,286 –> 00:27:22,316 [Speaker 2]
Yep.
00:27:22,316 –> 00:27:24,496 [Speaker 1]
Like, you’re good. And that’s why-
00:27:24,496 –> 00:27:24,586 [Speaker 2]
Yep
00:27:24,586 –> 00:27:55,346 [Speaker 1]
… I think the options that are emerging in the industry from yourself and, and Dwight and Torken Sawyer taking traditionally commercial pigs and finding, uh, a new consumer outlet for those, uh, it, it leads to a variability in our industry that I don’t think consumers know, and I think options breed, uh, breed growth. And, and I think that especially my generation and, and, and below, um, lean into that optionality, lean into those unique-
00:27:55,346 –> 00:27:55,346 [Speaker 2]
Yep
00:27:55,346 –> 00:27:57,056 [Speaker 1]
… different experiences.
00:27:57,056 –> 00:28:02,676 [Speaker 2]
Yeah, yeah. I think everybody should be pro we want to have choices, right, in this type of environment because-
00:28:02,676 –> 00:28:03,056 [Speaker 1]
Yeah
00:28:03,056 –> 00:28:09,376 [Speaker 2]
… and even as a producer, right, if I see people saying, “Everybody should raise pigs the way I do,” I’m like, “Well, then I’m a commodity.”
00:28:09,376 –> 00:28:10,196 [Speaker 1]
Yeah. [laughs]
00:28:10,196 –> 00:28:16,736 [Speaker 2]
And, and that’s not good for my business, and it’s not good for the consumer ’cause it’s gonna get… If you have to raise it like me, it’s gonna be expensive ’cause I-
00:28:16,736 –> 00:28:16,976 [Speaker 1]
Yeah
00:28:16,976 –> 00:28:34,476 [Speaker 2]
… can’t raise it very cheap, right? And so that’s… I mean, it’s great to have choices. If you like the pork, you like the Duroc purebred or 100% Duroc pork chop, great. If, if you like the 50 per- you know, the conventional that’s 50% Duroc on a York Landrace, it, it’s still a really good piece of meat.
00:28:34,476 –> 00:28:34,626 [Speaker 1]
Right.
00:28:34,626 –> 00:28:34,626 [Speaker 2]
Right?
00:28:34,626 –> 00:28:34,636 [Speaker 1]
Yeah.
00:28:34,636 –> 00:28:43,976 [Speaker 2]
It’s still really good. And so I mean, I’ve eaten a lot of that in my life as well, and I can’t… I’m not ever gonna say, “Hey, that’s bad” or “It’s not good,” anything like that. It’s still really good.
00:28:43,976 –> 00:28:44,426 [Speaker 1]
Just different.
00:28:44,426 –> 00:29:24,196 [Speaker 2]
But you should be able to have choices versus mandating it should only be raised one way because it’s not, it’s not the, it’s not probably the best way for the pig either. And so we’ve done a lot of research to do what’s best for the pig in the last 50 years. And, uh, it’s funny how the pig keeps getting better and more efficient and healthier as we go, uh, through these, through these innovations. So I do think these having choices is, is critical. And so, uh, I’m, I’m thankful that we have choices, and not everybody does it the way I do it, or not everybody does it the way my neighbor does it. Uh, we need to be able to have both. Um, and it gives us tiers of cost and control in that manner as well.
00:29:25,236 –> 00:29:29,536 [Speaker 1]
So if people are interested in purchasing pork from you, how do they get in touch?
00:29:29,536 –> 00:29:52,756 [Speaker 2]
Yeah. The easiest way is you can order online. It’s yoderfamilyfarms, with an S, dot com. And you can go in there. You can order by the cut. You can order some bundles. Um, and we ship it all across the U.S., the lower 48, and, uh, we ship right to your door. And, um, yeah, it… we’d, we’d, we would definitely appreciate the support of our farms. We’re trying to grow and, and raise a high-quality product.
00:29:53,956 –> 00:30:03,906 [Speaker 0]
You probably know we talk a lot about innovation in pork production here. What you might not know is SwineTech, the team behind this podcast, is leading the charge with their PigFlow platform.
00:30:05,136 –> 00:30:26,476 [Speaker 0]
SwineTech is dedicated to empowering pork producers worldwide to provide high-quality individualized care for every pig. Their world-class workforce management and point-of-care platform, PigFlow, streamlines, automates, and monitors routine and emergency care, communication, daily workflows, administrative duties, and herd diagnostics.
00:30:27,756 –> 00:31:02,144 [Speaker 0]
This enables producers to optimize workflow and task clarity- Execution efficiency, prioritization, and simplification of compliance assessments. Pig Flow empowers managers with the ability to analyze and refine their processes and make adjustments to enhance overall value. If you’re interested in learning how producers are maximizing their resources, enhancing efficiencies, and improving employee engagement and pig care with Pig Flow, visit swinetechnologies.com. So I’m gonna ask you a couple rapid-fire questions before we wrap up. First one is, what is your favorite cut of pork?
00:31:02,144 –> 00:31:03,324 [Speaker 2]
Pork tenderloin.
00:31:03,324 –> 00:31:03,534 [Speaker 0]
Okay.
00:31:03,534 –> 00:31:05,423 [Speaker 2]
Followed by a barbecue pork burger.
00:31:05,424 –> 00:31:09,624 [Speaker 0]
So pork tenderloin, uh, and then barbecued pork burger.
00:31:09,624 –> 00:31:10,944 [Speaker 2]
Yes. Yeah. I, uh-
00:31:10,944 –> 00:31:13,804 [Speaker 0]
How do you, how do you like your tenderloin? How do you do it?
00:31:13,804 –> 00:31:19,633 [Speaker 2]
I put it on the smoker, pull it off at 140, let it sit for 10 minutes. Salt, a little salt, pepper, garlic.
00:31:19,633 –> 00:31:19,664 [Speaker 0]
Yep.
00:31:19,664 –> 00:31:21,664 [Speaker 2]
It’s, keep it simple.
00:31:21,664 –> 00:31:26,704 [Speaker 0]
And then if you could go back in time and have dinner with any historical figure, who would it be?
00:31:26,704 –> 00:31:45,224 [Speaker 2]
You know, I’m a, I’m a man of faith, and, uh, I think you, y- if you don’t say going back and seeing what Jesus was doing 2,000 years ago, I think you… I mean, we can read it in the book. That’s something, it’d be amazing to be i- in that time. But [laughs] that’s, that’s, like, the gimme answer there, but it’s true. [laughs]
00:31:45,224 –> 00:31:51,644 [Speaker 0]
So, so when Jesus comes up, because, yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s the, yeah, the gimme answer for a lot of people, so what I’ll ask-
00:31:51,644 –> 00:31:51,724 [Speaker 2]
Yeah
00:31:51,724 –> 00:31:52,544 [Speaker 0]
… is now-
00:31:52,544 –> 00:31:52,924 [Speaker 2]
Yeah
00:31:52,924 –> 00:31:56,164 [Speaker 0]
… what part of his life? Because we know so much more-
00:31:56,164 –> 00:31:56,174 [Speaker 2]
Yeah
00:31:56,174 –> 00:31:59,984 [Speaker 0]
… about him and his life than, than a lot of other individuals.
00:31:59,984 –> 00:32:00,684 [Speaker 2]
Yeah.
00:32:00,684 –> 00:32:02,304 [Speaker 0]
Where would you wanna be?
00:32:02,304 –> 00:32:21,784 [Speaker 2]
Yeah. I think would be interesting to be kind of in that childhood area, where we don’t have a lot of insight, and just be like, be like a kid just running with Jesus, and being like, “I’m screwing up. He’s not. What? I’m getting in trouble. He’s not. What’s going on here?” I think it’d be just interesting to see what that looked like before he started his ministry.
00:32:21,784 –> 00:32:23,734 [Speaker 0]
So when… So here’s a, here’s a good one then.
00:32:23,734 –> 00:32:23,764 [Speaker 2]
[laughs]
00:32:23,764 –> 00:32:28,644 [Speaker 0]
When Jesus was eight years old, do you think he got in trouble?
00:32:28,644 –> 00:32:35,434 [Speaker 2]
Was his mom just like, “Man, I gotta yell at Jesus once in a while so his brothers don’t think I’m playing favorites,” or what? Like, I don’t know. Like, I’m not sure.
00:32:35,434 –> 00:32:36,134 [Speaker 0]
Like, I’m, I’m, I’m curious.
00:32:36,134 –> 00:32:36,144 [Speaker 2]
[laughs]
00:32:36,144 –> 00:32:38,804 [Speaker 0]
I mean, he has a sense of humor, and you can see in some-
00:32:38,804 –> 00:32:38,964 [Speaker 2]
Yeah
00:32:38,964 –> 00:32:44,964 [Speaker 0]
… of the approaches on things. I, I wonder if he was, like, an ornery kid. Like, maybe he wasn’t a bad kid, right? He wouldn’t have been a bad kid.
00:32:44,964 –> 00:32:45,614 [Speaker 2]
Yeah. Yeah.
00:32:45,614 –> 00:32:45,924 [Speaker 0]
But, uh-
00:32:45,924 –> 00:32:46,144 [Speaker 2]
Probably just like-
00:32:46,144 –> 00:32:48,664 [Speaker 0]
You wonder how much he got in trouble just from the natural-
00:32:48,664 –> 00:32:48,674 [Speaker 2]
Yeah
00:32:48,674 –> 00:32:52,084 [Speaker 0]
… ’cause 100% God, 100% human, like, w- what learning-
00:32:52,084 –> 00:32:53,014 [Speaker 2]
Yeah.
00:32:53,014 –> 00:32:53,033 [Speaker 0]
Yeah. [laughs]
00:32:53,033 –> 00:33:02,014 [Speaker 2]
Just point out his brother’s mistakes, and him just being like, “Man, Jesus, stop, stop telling us what, telling on us to what we’re doing wrong, man.” [laughs]
00:33:02,014 –> 00:33:02,524 [Speaker 0]
[laughs]
00:33:02,524 –> 00:33:04,904 [Speaker 2]
Something like that. Yeah, I don’t know. I think it would just be-
00:33:04,904 –> 00:33:05,653 [Speaker 0]
That’d be fascinating
00:33:05,653 –> 00:33:11,623 [Speaker 2]
… I think it would be interesting to just be a fly on the wall for that convers- you know, just how that happened, but [laughs]
00:33:11,624 –> 00:33:21,244 [Speaker 0]
Very cool. Well, thank you for being a guest on the podcast. We wish you the absolute best as you grow your family business and, and work forward on that, and I appreciate you being a guest.
00:33:21,244 –> 00:33:27,164 [Speaker 2]
Hey, I appreciate you having me. Love talking pigs, genetics, and just the future of the industry, so appreciate it, Matthew.
00:33:29,564 –> 00:33:36,484 [Speaker 2]
[gentle music]
00:33:36,484 –> 00:33:54,204 [Speaker 0]
Thank you for joining us on this episode of Popular Pig. We aspire to learn and grow together through the experience and wisdom shared by our esteemed guests. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends and colleagues within the swine industry. For more information, please go to popularpig.com to receive updates when new episodes are available.
00:33:57,984 –> 00:34:11,544 [Speaker 0]
Popular Pig is brought to you by SwineTech, the award-winning creators of SmartGuard and Pig Flow. To learn how Pig Flow can help you streamline your workforce and reduce piglet and sow deaths, visit swinetechnologies.com. [gentle music]
