Automatically Transcribed With AI
Matthew Rooda 00:00:02 Welcome to the popular pig podcast. I’m your host Matthew Roda. And joining us today is Travis Brown. Travis, excited to have you on the podcast. Yeah, Matt, thanks for the, appreciate the invite. And, get me down here. So we have had many good conversations over the past six months, and so excited to focus on that. Today. We’re going to be in really talking through your journey in the industry, but also working in a more corporate environment versus smaller family operation. What does it mean to lead and set people up for success then? Are we measuring the right things? We have some typical measurements that we use as an industry and discussing whether or not those are the right or wrong measurements, or maybe where they might get people in trouble, and then kind of talking through, a few remaining items tied to that. So excited to get started with you. For us to kick this off, would you mind giving us a little bit of your background? Where did you grow up and how did you even get into this wine industry? Yeah.
Travis Brown 00:00:56 So I, I got started. basically fresh out of college. I grew up in North Carolina. went to North Carolina State University, graduated 2011 with two degrees at a livestock and poultry management, and got talked into getting a second major in ag business management. So I spent my last two years at NC state really pretty much in the classroom every day. fresh out of college. Got started with Smithfield. Back then it was Murphy Brown, manager trainee. When was that? What year? I’ve been 20, 2011. I started two days after I got married. so started out, you know, fresh trainee, didn’t even really know how we raised pigs in the US. You know, I grew up in a more rural part of western North Carolina. Had, you know, a couple pigs on the ground every year. And and really, that’s I thought that’s how everybody raised hogs. And so went through an internship in college. Really just fell in love with it. The whole industry then and right out of college, Murphy Brown made an offer, so went to work for those guys and kind of just grinded your way through the system from a manager trainee to, you know, moving up to a department supervisor to a farm manager, just just really just a slow grind.
Travis Brown 00:02:18 left Smithfield shortly after, right at two year mark. went to work for a company out in eastern North Carolina that was just starting to contract. Finished some pigs for Smithfield. stuck it out there, for about eight years. Left there and went to work on a daughter nucleus out in Nebraska managing it. And so that was a lot of fun. I got to see a whole different side of the industry, you know, so coming in from commercial sound production, then going into the contract finishing world and then coming out and going straight into a daughter nucleus and really getting to see the genetics play, you know, the role that they play in it. and moved back east in 2020. went to work for Prestige in South Carolina. And in 2024, Minnesota came calling. So I left Prestage and went to work where I’m at currently at legacy AG. Yeah, you’re about to bounce around in the Midwest and back to the coast and back to the Midwest. Yeah, I you know, it’s one of those things once you you experience it, it’s a different culture in rural like rural area, Midwest, you know, even like southwest Nebraska or west central Minnesota, where I’m at now, it’s it’s a different culture.
Travis Brown 00:03:34 And I think for me and my family, that’s really what drew us back was, you know, just a sense of community. and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Yeah.
Matthew Rooda 00:03:46 It is odd how how different the culture in Eastern Carolina versus the Midwest is. And there’s like what community is looks very different.
Travis Brown 00:03:58 Yeah. Yeah. And that’s that’s exactly right. Like what community is I mean, we first moved to Prince Burg, right? small Dutch community. And you’ve got this guy from the Carolinas who does not talk. Right? and the community, I mean, from day one was open arms. Yeah. Yeah. Anything and everything. I could ask for help. you know, we had an army show up to unload the U-Haul. And basically what took me a whole day to pack that U-Haul. We unloaded it in about 30 minutes, you know? So that was my first taste of, what do they call it? Midwest. Nice. Yeah.
Matthew Rooda 00:04:36 There’s not a whole lot of you weren’t from here.
Matthew Rooda 00:04:40 Yep. So, like, I feel like in North Carolina, there’s two sides. You do have people who are like, doesn’t matter. Open arms. And you have people who are like, well, you’re not from here. And it’s maybe less welcoming. in Nebraska. Minnesota. I don’t care where you’re from. You get that Midwest. Welcome. Yeah, but it looks very different.
Travis Brown 00:05:00 And that is exactly the truth. I mean, there are different parts of North Carolina are exactly like that. It’s, you know, open arms or crossed arms. Yeah. You know.
Matthew Rooda 00:05:09 I love North Carolina. I want to move there someday.
Travis Brown 00:05:12 But, yeah, they turn the thermostat. If they turn the thermostat down a little bit more. I’d probably. I’d consider retiring there.
Matthew Rooda 00:05:19 What do you mean by the thermostat?
Travis Brown 00:05:20 It’s too.
Matthew Rooda 00:05:21 Hot. Okay. It’s true. You were going with that one. It’s. It’s hot. You have to like humidity to live there.
Travis Brown 00:05:29 Yeah, yeah. And I think it’s, you know, like it’s being in Minnesota.
Travis Brown 00:05:34 Now it’s oh, there’s a heat index for 80 degree temps and and I’m out there like I’m not even breaking a sweat yet, you know. And everybody else is like this is miserable, you know. So it’s I.
Matthew Rooda 00:05:46 Think this is normal. Yeah.
Travis Brown 00:05:48 Yeah. It’s it’s a good way to get very acclimated with yourself and go out there and just, you know, it’s 100% humidity.
Matthew Rooda 00:05:55 I’d still rather have the 100% humidity 100 degrees than -30. Oh, we’re.
Travis Brown 00:06:00 On opposite ends of.
Matthew Rooda 00:06:01 The table. I remember talking about that very opposite ends.
Travis Brown 00:06:05 Yeah, yeah, I take the cold.
Matthew Rooda 00:06:07 Yeah. So what happened? I guess what what was that journey like then going from, we’ll call it Smithfield Prestage to where you are today because that very dramatic ends of the spectrum. Right. You were with very large organizations. And what was that culture shift like?
Travis Brown 00:06:30 I think the and this is one of the things that I think big, big corporations struggle to see, especially in a younger generation workforce and maybe in the first generation, in my family involved heavily in agriculture.
Travis Brown 00:06:51 You leave there? Not because you hated your job. I didn’t hate my job. I love my job there. I felt like I was a small fish in a big pond. Right? And I think to me, it was the culture shock to me was being able to feel like I’m making an impact and not only the direction of the company, but in, in, in the lives of the people that work for me. And even to this day, it’s that’s a recurring theme that I hear is, you know, I and I asked plenty of people that have left big corporations and went to work for a little bit smaller, more agile, nimble company. And it’s this common theme pops up, especially if it’s younger generation guys in their 30s or girls in their 30s. I just didn’t feel like I made a difference.
Matthew Rooda 00:07:46 Which is what the younger generation is driven on.
Travis Brown 00:07:48 Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s very much a results and impact mindset. Yeah. And you know I think there’s, there’s good and bad to that.
Travis Brown 00:08:00 You know obviously you can be on one end of the spectrum and really turn things south in a hurry. but there’s a lot of good talent in that generation especially, you know, the, the early 90s, kids like myself and, and even the kids that are fresh out of college today. They bring a whole different skill set to the table that, two generations. You know, like my dad, you know, he’s his generation. Just won’t get it. And, you know, it’s it’s that mindset of how do we constantly move forward. We have to move the ball forward. Right? Well, if you want to move the ball forward, you can either embrace change or you can just say, nope, I’m not going to embrace the change and I’m going to be stagnant. Well, in the livestock industry, If you’re if you’re not growing, you’re you’re not going to be around long. Yeah.
Matthew Rooda 00:08:53 And we’ve seen that for decades. Yep.
Travis Brown 00:08:55 Yep. And I think that’s why you see you know like I looked back home like the I call them the forefathers of the pork industry.
Travis Brown 00:09:02 Like like, you know, Bill Prestage and Wendell Murphy, they, they could see that coming and they knew what they needed to do. And, and my, my only regret in life is I wasn’t old enough to work underneath them then. I was still just a young chap.
Matthew Rooda 00:09:19 Yeah. I mean, that’s that was a a pretty phenomenal stage of the industry. My dad was from Pella, Iowa, the Dutch town here, and, went to Kirkwood and Cedar Rapids and then moved over to Eastern Carolina to work for J.C. Howard. The whole reason was, hey, some big things are happening, and I want to be a part of it. And to have been at the the slat level when the industry was going through that substantial of a change? it would have been pretty phenomenal.
Travis Brown 00:09:50 Yeah. And that’s a that’s a whole different learning curve. Oh, like, just like I find myself today even just thinking, you know, like what what obstacles did they did they face? And then how did they figure out how to overcome them? Like today, it’s pretty easy.
Travis Brown 00:10:09 You got an obstacle in front of you, but that’s fine. You can pretty much get on the internet in five minutes to figure out how to do it. You know, those guys didn’t have that.
Matthew Rooda 00:10:17 No, it was blood.
Travis Brown 00:10:18 Blood, sweat and tears.
Matthew Rooda 00:10:19 And the decisions they were making were 30, 40 year type decisions. Yeah. I mean, we’re still living with the impact, both good and bad, of the decisions that were made to grow fast.
Travis Brown 00:10:30 Yeah. And I think, you know, that to to get back on the culture shock side of things. I mean, that was that was a huge culture shock. You know, for me, coming into the system that I’m in was leaving a very much multi-billion dollar a year company and then coming into a little bit smaller company and, you know, getting to basically make the same decisions that Wendell and Bill Prestage got to make. Yeah. And and, you know, it’s it’s a lot of fun. I, I can imagine just about how much fun they had.
Matthew Rooda 00:11:06 Well, in a big part of it too is I think people in the industry, especially more senior people in the industry, recognizing that what it meant to work in the swine industry when they entered it is in no way similar to what it’s like now. They were entering at a point where things were scaling and scaling big, and so there was excitement and meaning in the decisions they were a part of. And you could feel the growth. And now the industry is stagnant and in some ways reducing the cell herd optimization. It’s a very different feel. It doesn’t come with the same energy and excitement that it did in the 90s that captivated so many people to turn this into a career. And so the culture is so much more important now than ever, because you have to captivate people in a different way.
Travis Brown 00:11:52 Yeah, newer generations are much like a puppy. Yeah, right. You got to keep them intrigued by whatever you’re doing. Right. and that’s there. Yeah. Like you just said, I mean, there was opportunity to grow.
Travis Brown 00:12:09 Yeah.
Matthew Rooda 00:12:10 You know what felt endless?
Travis Brown 00:12:12 Yeah. You’re a new guy in 1990, coming in the Browns of Carolina or Murphy Family Ventures. You know, what you were doing in 1990 probably was not what you were doing in 1992. Yeah. You know, and and now, you see, you know, it’s not uncommon to see farm managers that have been farm manager for 10 or 11 years. And I think, you know, if you talk about some maybe some of the drawbacks to a, a bigger corporation culture might be, you know, as a young person, I want to move up. Right. Well, there’s a list of people that are wanting that position and it’s like, you know, I, I’d like to have it now. I don’t want to be 60 when I get my dream job. Right. Because it’s, you know, I, I’m not making an impact.
Matthew Rooda 00:13:01 Well, and a lot of the people too, who are in the swine industry starting at that level, do not necessarily look at their from my perspective, my experience, do not necessarily look at their life as something that they want to move across the country, right.
Matthew Rooda 00:13:17 Usually they’re kind of rooted in the community and this is an industry they’re interested in. But if you don’t see that growth potential, it’s not like I’m going to move to another state to expand my career. I’m just going to switch to another industry. Yeah. And so you see a lot of people leave because they’re not going to be like you, where, hey, I will uproot my family from North Carolina, go to Nebraska, or go to freaking west central Minnesota to go chase my, chase my career progression.
Travis Brown 00:13:43 Yeah. And I think we were recruiting pretty heavy here recently for a for a position. and I had plenty of contacts in the Carolinas that that young guys like myself, that would have been rock stars and none of them willing to move. Yeah. And so in a lot of ways, yeah, I’m kind of different than the mold. Right? It’s, I always looked at how can I how can I learn more? You know, how how can I position myself to be in a spot where I can make an impact on an industry that is pretty much given me a phenomenal life so far? I mean, it’s, you know, I’m blessed.
Travis Brown 00:14:28 I’ve got a wife at home and I’ve got four young kids and and, this industry has paid for that. And there’s not a lot of places you can go today that would do that for you and let you have the the ability to, you know, take my eight year old into a finisher and or into a Sow unit. get to see my 11 year old sleeveless out for the first time. You know, like there’s there’s a lot of companies, there’s a lot of careers where you can’t do that.
Matthew Rooda 00:14:56 Yeah, there’s a level of flexibility that I witnessed growing up that comes with this career path that is understated. Yeah, yeah there is. And and if companies lean into that ability, it can create such a cool balance.
Travis Brown 00:15:12 Yep. Yeah. And that was you know, I think one of the spots that we struggle with is that as, as an industry and you know, I was telling you earlier, we just come back from California with the Minnesota Activate cohort, the leadership cohort with Minnesota Pork Board.
Travis Brown 00:15:27 And and that was one of the questions we were talking about. And I think we were at Walter Show Pigs just outside of Sacramento. And we had that discussion. And that was the, the thing was. You see, the the average age of the the average age of a US farmer is almost 70 years old. The average age of a person in the pork industry is almost 60. The average age of a farm manager in the pork industry is almost 40. You know, and I don’t know too many kids that are going to come out of college with a bachelor’s degree in animal science and grind their way from manager trainee to farm manager, and they’re going to spend 16 years doing that if they fall into the average category. That’s just it.
Matthew Rooda 00:16:25 There’s not enough progression.
Travis Brown 00:16:26 Nobody’s going to do that. Yeah, I shouldn’t say nobody, but a lot of people aren’t.
Matthew Rooda 00:16:33 people who are. I would say Yeah, it’s just depends on the person. But most people probably won’t do that.
Travis Brown 00:16:39 Yeah.
Travis Brown 00:16:40 But to your point, if we market this a little different and really showcase and really embrace the family, and maybe that’s letting farm managers or employees bring their kids to work one day I look at my my Sal units are kind of the way I, I have those positions. We have boots and coveralls for everybody’s kid.
Matthew Rooda 00:17:08 That’s pretty cool.
Travis Brown 00:17:10 And the only thing I asked for is just shoot me a text when somebody wants to bring their kid to work. Just so I know. Yep. And they follow the same biosecurity procedures. Everything stays the same. But the the joy. And the other weekend, I went into one of the commercial units, and the breeding supervisor had her kid there with her. But just getting to see the joy on that kid’s face when he was working with mom to PCI a Sal. You know, it was when you talk about producing the next generation, that’s a lasting impact. That kid’s going to remember that for the rest of the rest of it’s rest of his life.
Matthew Rooda 00:17:52 Yeah, I’ll never forget I was I would have been five. I’d go into this 2000 head Sal farm and they’d have me walking around scraping crap, probably taking ten times as long as anybody else. But I felt I felt like I was helping. And then. Oh, now you’re gonna sleep. Some souls. Oh, sit on the back of the sal while you hold the rod. Like you remember those things getting pushed into the feed wagon as they would hand feed Sal’s and farrowing. and then I was probably eight, and the farm’s insurance companies said you could no longer have people on site under the age of 16. That sucked. My dad was pissed because there’s a level of there is joy. There is connection and sharing what you do and building that work ethic at a young age. And you could no longer, longer, no longer find that. So you had to work for contract growers, but now you’re not on the farrowing side or the gestation side. You’re stuck in nursery finishing. So it, it matters.
Travis Brown 00:18:49 Yeah, it really does. And I think the industry is undervalued that they have. We’ve we’ve not tapped into the all the potential that’s there.
Matthew Rooda 00:18:58 Our employees kids are probably the best next generation of people to be in the industry at 100%. And we’re blocking them in many ways from seeing what’s going on.
Travis Brown 00:19:08 Yeah, yeah.
Matthew Rooda 00:19:09 So you see Mom and Dad tired when they get home and they smell them, but they don’t get to see all the cool stuff.
Travis Brown 00:19:17 Yeah, that’s exactly right. Don’t get to see the cool stuff. Right. And that’s where I get back to like, me being first generation in my family in the pork industry. Right. Like, that’s by happenstance, 100%. Like it was just God’s plan for me was to just be in the pork industry. And and there’s so much more to it than like when you talk to somebody and they’re like, oh, you, you work with swine every day. And I’m like, yeah, I do. Oh man, that’s got to be a stinky job.
Travis Brown 00:19:50 At times it is, but it is one of the most fulfilling things you can do.
Matthew Rooda 00:19:56 Yeah. I tell people there’s few things more fulfilling than bringing new lives into the world and giving them a positive environment to grow and exist.
Travis Brown 00:20:04 Yeah. I mean, for me, it’s, you know, being on a slat is if I could put my office in a farrowing house, I would, I don’t think everybody in our regular office would appreciate that a whole lot, but, if I could do it, I would, and it’s I still, to this day, 16 years later, get excited walking into a farrowing barn and you see a Sal struggling, and you just you leave it right there and you pull that pig out and he’s alive. And it’s it just. It does something to you.
Matthew Rooda 00:20:37 We, So as we kind of think about that transition that you’ve made and you think about the good and the bad that have come from it. Can you talk about, without naming names, just from a culture standpoint, the things that you got to experience that created a really successful environment for you and your teams and some of the things that created more of a detrimental negative environment and just kind of get listeners to think through.
Matthew Rooda 00:21:05 Just what does it take to have a positive environment for your people to to thrive?
Travis Brown 00:21:11 Yeah. my first farm manager, I looked back on him and he made it fun. He, I would say was decades ahead of everybody on animal husbandry. And he poured a ton of knowledge into me as a young 20 year old kid, and that had a and seeing how he managed the group of employees that we had. And it’s a small 2300 head south arm I started on. Right. So not a big group. but seeing how he managed those employees, how he trusted those employees and how good that farm was because of that, it it really impacted me and really just brought kind of to me was always, you’ve got to make it fun. Nobody wants to go to a job that they hate.
Matthew Rooda 00:22:08 Yeah. People can’t be walking on pins and needles, right?
Travis Brown 00:22:10 Right.
Matthew Rooda 00:22:12 I guess micromanagement can can do that. And so how did he do that? Where he didn’t feel micromanaged, but you still felt like you were held accountable.
Travis Brown 00:22:20 It’s trusting expectations.
Matthew Rooda 00:22:22 Clear expectations, and then trusted you to execute them.
Travis Brown 00:22:25 Yep, yep. And, you know, I’ve, I’ve been under some micro managers, to the point that that is since probably 2019. That is a question I will ask in an interview. Are you going to micromanage me? and I’m usually straightforward about it, and I would rather be honest about it, but that is one thing that I have learned is you can get results through micromanagement. it’s usually only about 80% of what it potentially could be. And for me, a lot of this comes back and we’re kind of talking before we started here. I spent a lot of time looking at how the Seal teams do their operational briefings. I spent a lot of time reading about every book that Jocko Willink has ever wrote. One of my favorite ones is extreme Ownership.
Matthew Rooda 00:23:25 That’s a good.
Travis Brown 00:23:25 One. and I think there’s a lot of similarities between how those groups are ran and how I run our system is, you know, it’s I trust you all to execute on this and.
Matthew Rooda 00:23:44 And a level of I trust you to reach out if you don’t feel like you can.
Travis Brown 00:23:48 Exactly. The door is always open. Yeah, right. Like there’s. My dad used to say. There’s no stupid question. Right. And I think, like, for, for our guys is just like, in a decision making process. And or if we change a goal, you know, just name a goal, whatever it is, I want to lean 14 years out. That’s the goal. That’s the only framework I really give our team. And we sit down at the table and it’s no seniority. Everybody’s entitled to speak their piece on how we get there. Yeah.
Matthew Rooda 00:24:25 I want to hit this goal. How are we going to get there?
Travis Brown 00:24:29 Yep. And what I have learned is I can railroad my way through and just hit them with Iron Fist. Right. It’s. And it might be 100% effective plan. But there’s one key thing lacking. There won’t be any buy in. But if I let, like, a farm manager or a farrowing supervisor come up with a plan and it may only be 80% effective, but at least it has 100% buy in time after time.
Travis Brown 00:24:59 I know which one works.
Matthew Rooda 00:25:02 Yeah, we’ve always approached it as if you can get people to love what they do. Not just like, but love it. Yep. There’s more upside potential than any other form of management.
Travis Brown 00:25:11 Yeah. Human humans operate off of disappointment. I don’t want to disappoint you, you know? So if if it’s my plan and you’re trusting me to execute and get to that goal. I’m going to give everything I’ve got to make sure I don’t disappoint you.
Matthew Rooda 00:25:28 Especially when you gave them the freedom to set. Set? The, I guess set the strategy.
Travis Brown 00:25:34 Yep, yep. And, and and the way you kind of build that trust to even begin with, I mean, even for myself, was take accountability with you, right? So. And what I mean is, like when. I’ve trialed some things on the sale units and really had to, you know, three months in, go back and I would have a farm meeting with that South Farm and I’d say, hey, we’ve been trying this for three months.
Travis Brown 00:26:10 I had the wrong plan and we’re going to stop doing this.
Matthew Rooda 00:26:16 That’s huge. Going in and saying it was wrong. Like not like taking ownership. Yep. I was wrong.
Travis Brown 00:26:22 Yep.
Matthew Rooda 00:26:24 That has to do wonders.
Travis Brown 00:26:27 Yeah. When people feel like you have their back and they’re not just a line item on an Excel spreadsheet somewhere in a payroll system, you get a lot further. I mean, you and that’s in every metric. I mean, not just from a production metric, but from a turnover metric. You, you you stop having turnover.
Matthew Rooda 00:26:49 How do you get. How did you get buy in to drive that level of, culture? at both your level but the ownership level and also when you’re bringing in individuals on, on the veterinary side and just all around business because you are not the only person that they’re interacting with. Are you setting standards with your partners on this is how you will work with my team or, how do you drive that on some of the things that maybe aren’t you.
Travis Brown 00:27:20 You interview might be the wrong word to use, but we’ll use it. You effectively interview everybody to see if they’re going to be a good fit. Culture is not just your employees.
Matthew Rooda 00:27:34 Correct.
Travis Brown 00:27:35 Culture is everybody that walks through the front door. And I absolutely refuse to do business with anybody. They can have the best product in the world, but if they’re not going to be a good fit for my team, I just won’t do business with them. And and that’s it’s a simple philosophy because a.
Matthew Rooda 00:27:54 A vendor or a veterinarian or a nutritionist, whoever it might be, can bring in just as toxic of energy as hiring the wrong employee.
Travis Brown 00:28:05 Yep. Yep.
Matthew Rooda 00:28:06 Truly. Yeah.
Travis Brown 00:28:07 And we’ve we’ve all seen it. Right. And it’s there’s I don’t know how many times my vet said this. he says, you know, I try to stay in the veterinary world and I don’t play in the production world or the nutrition world, and my nutritionist says the same thing, and I tend to stay in my own lane to write like I’m a production guru.
Travis Brown 00:28:30 It’s just what I do. It’s what I do good at. I don’t go tell Doctor Brad how to do his job. It’s not my position, right? We have that respect with each other. We all operate very well together. and and that’s kind of really, that’s at the end of the day, that’s all it is. It’s just. Do you click? And I think the big thing is, is I am the same person I am sitting here as I am with a new technician that I just hired two hours ago. You’re going to get the same individual.
Matthew Rooda 00:29:02 Yeah. It’s authentic.
Travis Brown 00:29:03 Yeah. I could be talking to the CEO of whatever. And and I’m the same person talking to them as I am talking to a heard technician.
Matthew Rooda 00:29:12 So one of the values we have is authenticity. It’s one of three. And I tell everybody that comes on. You need to be your authentic self. Because when you’re unapologetically you, you’re happy and you’re going to produce the best. You’re going to have more positive energy.
Matthew Rooda 00:29:29 You’re gonna be able to leverage your strengths and weaknesses more, more effectively because they’re out on display. I think sometimes people kind of shield themselves from being themselves, trying to be whoever somebody else wants them to be. But when you can walk in and work with somebody and you’re processing pigs for two hours and they’re being them authentic, their authentic self, you know exactly where their seat on the bus should be.
Travis Brown 00:29:53 Yeah, yeah. And it’s, it’s it’s really not much different than, like if you’re from a production standpoint, if I’m going in and looking at a farm’s data, I would rather have junk numbers that are 100% honest. Yeah. Then fake numbers that are a lie. Right. And I think when you’re when you’re true to who you actually are. People appreciate that. For one, you don’t have to guess. And I think two, everybody gets to figure out how everybody ticks. And so if if I know that, you know, this employee or this person operates with this mindset and maybe I need to get some change out of them, I understand what makes that individual tick.
Travis Brown 00:30:44 And I can go play to that strong suit, and, and I can get changed pretty easy without having to really bear down on somebody. Right. And and so I think that’s you know the whole key to everything is just and even going back to like how you know, how do you build trust within a new system. I mean it’s it starts with you. I walked into a very, very different culture from the East Coast and I spent the first 2 or 3 months here, four days a week on a South farm, to the point that I got told, you have an office here and you need to spend some time here, right? But how can I build trust with my employees if I don’t go out there and get in the bushes with them and experience the things that they’re experiencing? Yeah. You know, I got to know that when.
Matthew Rooda 00:31:39 I work for.
Travis Brown 00:31:40 Them. Yeah, yeah. I can’t go out there and process every pig by myself. I can’t go out there and breed every.
Travis Brown 00:31:46 So if it wasn’t for those guys, I, I wouldn’t have a job.
Matthew Rooda 00:31:50 That was a big thing Steve Jobs spoke to is at the end of the day, the pyramids inverted. You can go out and hire. You have to go out and hire amazing people, and you can’t possibly do what those people do. And at the end of the day, they could go and work anywhere if they are great at their job. And so it’s your job to create an environment they want to be in and you work for them. You serve them.
Travis Brown 00:32:13 Yeah, yeah. And I think that’s a key thing too, is servant leadership. I think being a Christian has taught me servant leadership more than anything. but I, I firmly believe that even to this day, when I go into a soul unit, the first question out of my mouth is, hey, what do you need me to help with today? And it’s not a loaded question. Like, I’m not just asking it to just ask it.
Travis Brown 00:32:39 Like I’ve had and I’ve told all the managers, be honest with me. If you’re short somebody and and maybe you need help, you know, pulling blood out of the isolation unit, that’s fine. I’ll go bleed sales. Yeah. You know, if if I have to, you know, if you need help. Pressure washing, that’s fine. I’ll go. Pressure wash. If I’ve got time to do it, I got time to do it. Right. But I, I think just having that level of vulnerability with people, they really appreciate it. And it makes them really happy to go to work every day.
Matthew Rooda 00:33:10 You know, sometimes I feel like they need like Philippians 413. I could do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Yeah. Right on the door above, walking into the farm. Yeah. It’s like, yeah. Oh, we had a break. Yeah. Okay. I can do this. Yeah.
Travis Brown 00:33:22 Yeah, exactly. It’s, you know, it’s, Yeah. Like I said, you I, I couldn’t do what I do every day.
Travis Brown 00:33:28 I wouldn’t have the life I have if it wasn’t for having a really dynamite team underneath me. that enables that.
Matthew Rooda 00:33:36 So, so kind of hit on this point, then we’re going to get into some of the way we manage things or measure things. we, we were talking before we hopped on, and we’re recording a little bit about the episode we did with PJ talking about the, the, the mix of individualization and a systemic process. So you’ve been in some systems that that have the structure and the processes in place. How can you how do you think if you were consulting larger organizations that had, you know, these are our processes, we expect everybody to do the same thing but yet gain the advantages that come with the individualization. Since every farm and every team are slightly different, how can you create the environment you’re talking about? in an environment where you kind of have to have standardization, is if I’ve got 60 cell farms, I can’t possibly have them all operating in whatever way. There needs to be some some guardrails.
Matthew Rooda 00:34:29 But how do you get the best of both worlds from your perspective?
Travis Brown 00:34:32 Yeah, I, I think like I use a cow pasture analogy, really for, for how I do this is, here’s the big broad spectrum. This is the this is the pasture you can play in. And, I don’t care what you do within that. Right? And when you and I, I really got this idea from I was watching a TikTok on leadership or something, and it was it was actually very intriguing. But they did a study they took a bunch of kids and they put them in an open field, and they all huddled in one spot. And then when they put them in a place that had a fence around it. Then they started pushing the fence. And so in a lot of ways, yes, you have to have structure. Like we even like we’re not a big corporation. We have structure. We have structure. you have to build those guard, those guardrails. At the end of the day, as long as we get to the goal and we stay within those guardrails.
Travis Brown 00:35:39 I don’t care what the strategy look like.
Matthew Rooda 00:35:41 How important it is. So at depending on the organization. So let’s say you have you have some places where you have plenty of pasture, some places where you have none. Your argument is you need to have some, even if it’s just a small little acre versus a hundred acres of pasture. You need some area where people feel like they can explore, play, challenge the. Yeah. Experiment.
Travis Brown 00:36:05 Yep, Yep. And that’s really. It is. but I think the way you give that acre to that person is all built through trust. And trust is a two way street. Right. You have to believe in them. But they also have to believe in you that, hey, if I screw this up, I’m not going to get I’m not going to get in trouble for it. I’m not going to get yelled at.
Matthew Rooda 00:36:32 Yeah, you got my back.
Travis Brown 00:36:33 Yeah, yeah, we’re gonna sit down and I got I’ve had managers that have just, you know, they’ve just messed up.
Travis Brown 00:36:40 They were within the boundaries, but they messed up. Right. And it’s, you know, you pull them in and set them down, you know, hey, this is what you did wrong. this was the the desired outcome. This is the path you chose. And. Here’s and it’s not here’s what you’re going to do to fix this. It’s here’s how I’m going to help you fix this. So I’m going to walk you through this. I’m going to pull you out of the mud and help you get back to where you need to be, right? Instead of coming in and really hammering on somebody that’s already beating yourself up because they let you down, right? Like the analogy of beating a dead horse. Yeah, right. Like, and I tell all my guys this, I have short term memory. I might get on to you for about five minutes, but after that, it doesn’t exist anymore.
Matthew Rooda 00:37:36 Yeah, it’s. You can deal with the situation, move on. And it’s truly as if it never happened.
Travis Brown 00:37:44 Yep. Yeah. And I think that.
Matthew Rooda 00:37:46 I think it’s a real value and trait when you’re speaking like Christianity and forgiveness. Move on. Let’s figure it out. I think that’s a big part of that.
Travis Brown 00:37:52 Yeah. And that’s you know, I was just talking to a South Farm manager yesterday. I basically we were talking about it. We’re talking about some stuff. They’ve made some decisions and they were actually good decisions in the process. And, I told him, I said, you know, the decision making rule around here, is it going to cost me a barn full of pigs? Is it going to cost me an employee, or is it going to cost me a purse break? But if the answer to all three questions is no, make the best decision you think you can make. Tell me about it when we have time to talk. But I don’t need to be marred up in the weeds of your day to day management of your Sal unit. I pay you good. I expect you to do a good job, and more times than not, they meet or beat my expectations well.
Matthew Rooda 00:38:44 And the more problems you have autonomy to make a decision like that. And you fail and you learn and you grow. The more successful you’re set up to be long term. It’s a lot of people who have never really been able to make those decisions, and they’re going to be 40, 45 years old. and they really are no more experience than somebody who spent 2 or 3 years in a cell farm.
Travis Brown 00:39:06 Yeah, and I think that’s a key spot, too. we do a really good job in this industry when we promote people based off of tenure. Well, they’ve been here for ten years. They deserve this position. Maybe, maybe they do. Maybe they don’t. Right. if, if they have the inability to make a decision, I would argue they probably don’t.
Matthew Rooda 00:39:35 Yeah.
Travis Brown 00:39:36 You know, and and I think that’s where we see a lot of leadership fatigue come from as these people are so used to just a just, you know, autopilot. Right. Like, I’m just driving the car down the freeway and and all the decisions are being made for me.
Travis Brown 00:39:52 Right. So, you know, water breeding program is going to look like, what? Our day one big care is going to look like, how we’re going to staff and run every activity in the farrowing house. I mean, there are companies out there that have that down to an SOP.
Matthew Rooda 00:40:08 And all of us people are just checking boxes.
Travis Brown 00:40:10 And all of a sudden they get put in a spot where they have to make a decision. And then the weight of the world comes crashing down. Yeah. And it’s, it’s usually does not in very good.
Matthew Rooda 00:40:22 And you think you’re protecting them by, by not exposing that earlier. But ultimately yeah. If you do want to promote I like the ruthlessness of sports. I like the idea of, you know, you’ve got a new set of rookies that come in every year. They are just as capable after six months to a year to take your job. are we all growing? Yep. And if if we’re not, then maybe we stop being the person who’s starting and we start being the one who’s supporting.
Matthew Rooda 00:40:54 but I also think our industry is sometimes. and this isn’t just our industry. So I hear this from our engineering team, from aerospace organizations and other engineering firms thinking just about every area of business. oh. We need a manager. Oh, well, that’s hire our best breeder. Well, maybe your best breeder is not wanting to be a manager, but they do want the 10,000 and $15,000 pay increase. Maybe we should just pay them more for being a really good breeder. And we can go find somebody else to be that manager. But to justify the pay increase, to keep them around, we throw them in a management role, which ultimately.
Travis Brown 00:41:34 Leads to burnout, leads to burnout. And it’s I had that exact situation play out. Yeah. Where a guy been on a farm about seven years got made a fair one supervisor before I started, before I started. And he came up to me not very long after. He’s like, I can’t do it. And I’m I can’t do what he’s like.
Travis Brown 00:41:55 I can’t handle the people. He’s like, it’s it was way easier when I was just a team lead. And all I had to do was just go get sales up every day and treat Sal’s and make sure monitoring was being done.
Matthew Rooda 00:42:06 He wanted to be the expert caretaker. You didn’t want to be the manager?
Travis Brown 00:42:09 Yeah, and I had this. She was a young girl. She was 19 years old. Worked for me for about a year at that point, maybe. And she just excelled with people’s skills. And, I ended up putting her in that position, and she took off with it. Right. But she not everybody is cut out to be a chief. Yeah. There has to be some Indians.
Matthew Rooda 00:42:36 And it’s a and I mean, if you were I mean if another sports analogy. Right. You don’t want 11 quarterbacks.
Travis Brown 00:42:43 Nope.
Matthew Rooda 00:42:44 No. Sometimes you just need a really good left tackle.
Travis Brown 00:42:47 Yep.
Matthew Rooda 00:42:48 I’ve got your back. I’m gonna protect the crap out of this, this team and just do your thing.
Matthew Rooda 00:42:53 Do it really, really well.
Travis Brown 00:42:55 Yep. Yep. That’s exactly right. I mean, it’s, you know, it’s it’s a shame that it’s like that, but I mean, there there’s a lot of people that are in leadership positions across the entire world that really, honestly don’t want anything to do with it. But they like the paycheck.
Matthew Rooda 00:43:11 Yeah. Which I mean, you can’t blame them if that is the only way to increase compensation. You deal with it, you take the role. But if we can create more areas to, maybe we just need to evaluate the ROI a bit differently on on compensation and, and just what that value can look like. Because do we really need people with exceptional breeding and farrowing experience to be a good farm manager?
Travis Brown 00:43:36 No, I think that’s one of the things when I got hired at Murphy Brown and I’ll never forget, the head of HR sat me down as a college kid, and she told me, I said, and I was honest with her. I said the only experience I have is the two month internship and a couple backyard hogs, and she’s like, we don’t care.
Travis Brown 00:44:00 You’re good with numbers and you’re good with people. She said, we will teach you the pigs, but I can’t teach you the other two things. And I think, yeah, that’s that was 100% correct. I think we there’s things that we could do better, to maybe better equip some of our existing leaders in this industry. soft skills training is is a huge thing that I’m a proponent of. to the point that I think everybody in our system has taken a personality test or two. and we’ve kind of all sat down and talked about that, with each other and, and you kind of get to learn. You know, the neat thing about that is you get to learn how to play around with different personalities because everybody’s going to respond differently. But you need but you need some people that are deep on the disc profile. Yeah. You need some eyes, right? You need every little piece to make the thing go. You got to have that kid in the back corner who always makes a joke in a meeting.
Travis Brown 00:45:06 Yeah, as bad as you don’t want to, but you have to have him.
Matthew Rooda 00:45:09 You don’t want to hire ten youths you need. No.
Travis Brown 00:45:12 I would be scared to death if I had ten of me working. I’d be in trouble.
Matthew Rooda 00:45:17 We’ve even had people with, Charlotte and Bigelow upload the disc profiles, so that way I could say, hey, I’m having a problem with this person. And then right there in the barn. Well, this is maybe the way you want to handle that, and that’s pretty cool. We use strength finders in our team, which I love, because you’ve got your five things. You’re great at everything else. How do you supplement with somebody else’s assistance? And, it was funny. We had one individual who, went over others is is what that is. And they’re just naturally, you gravitate to them. Yeah. And, part of it, it says in the description, it says, you’ve probably been the best man in more than one wedding. He goes for.
Matthew Rooda 00:45:58 It’s like, yeah, and then it was also, you probably people probably think you’re not taking serious moments seriously. Like, yeah, I make I’m light hearted on it because I’m trying to lighten the load for everybody. Yeah, that’s that’s you learn those things.
Travis Brown 00:46:11 Yeah. And I think, you know, that’s pretty much about how I am, like, I mean, the, the world could be ending and I’m going to figure out a way to make a joke.
Matthew Rooda 00:46:21 Yeah. And some people are like, well, Travis, are you even taking this seriously? It’s like, I’m taking this seriously in anybody. This is just how I handle the the situation.
Travis Brown 00:46:28 I just this is just how I process it, you know? I mean, it’s, Yeah, there’s been a handful of times, even in the pork industry, you know, just dealing with a, a, a purge break where, you know, like, we we had a purge break on a commercial unit and everybody’s like, all down and out about it.
Travis Brown 00:46:43 And I’m like, oh, at least we get up to date genetics.
Matthew Rooda 00:46:47 You got to find the positive.
Travis Brown 00:46:49 You know it. I mean, at the end of the it’s like the old saying crying over spilled milk. I mean, at the end of the day, you still gotta go clean it up. Yeah, right. You might as well just have fun. Yeah. and I think that’s that’s the whole thing. I mean, everything around me is go to work, have fun, enjoy it. Like that’s it.
Matthew Rooda 00:47:09 So as we move into the conversation around metrics, then we have gravitated towards, you know, we’ve got soy pre wean sound mortality. Just all the things that the industry is really tracking and benchmarking. And so my question for you is have you how much value have you found in benchmarking. Just with all the measurements. I mean you’ve been in a lot of systems. So you’ve seen a lot of different ways things are done. And then also which which metrics do you feel like are just, overinflated in the way the industry’s tying value or, or tying their objectives towards?
Travis Brown 00:47:45 Yeah, I think it’s probably not a very big secret on where I stand with certain things.
Travis Brown 00:47:50 I usually tend to be pretty vocal.
Matthew Rooda 00:47:52 Depends if people know who you are. Yeah, yeah.
Travis Brown 00:47:56 The benchmarking. Oh, boy. This is going to stir hornet’s nest. I don’t find any value in it, to be honest with you. Why not? Not today. 20 years ago, maybe 30. Maybe you got to go back 30 years ago. Maybe there was value in it. Because for the most part, barns were the same. Genetics were. Yeah, pretty much similar. and for the most part, everybody was fair to finish. today you’ve got OPG barns, you got prop 12 barns, you’ve got OPG with stanchions, you’ve got SF barns, you’ve got I named the gamut right. The list is probably five.
Matthew Rooda 00:48:39 You do internal multiplication. You buy your gilts. There’s endless variation.
Travis Brown 00:48:44 There’s probably 500 different ways to skin the cat. Yeah, right. and so I think in a lot in, in that regard, benchmarking has lost its value. and you know, when, when I get a benchmarking report, it’s there’s really only about four KPIs I look at on that report.
Travis Brown 00:49:07 what are those that actually matter to me? And it’s, you know, the biggest thing for me is pigs wing pursuing. But you have to count the nurse offs of zeros. you’ve got to know how effective your farrowing department is at managing sales.
Matthew Rooda 00:49:26 You can. Hi. You can? Yeah, it’s. If you can chase PS y.
Travis Brown 00:49:31 And I and I, I said, I said you have to count the nurse offs of zeros because there’s a lot of guys out there who will over farrow a farrowing house, clean cells off, redistribute the pigs and then tell you they’re waiting 14.5 pigs per litter. Well, you just fed that cell for 116 days. You put all that labor into her just to nurse her off. Yeah. And what are you doing to your wean weights? It’s probably negative.
Matthew Rooda 00:50:02 Well, then you get into. So we’ll we’ll hit SWI because I know that’s a big one for you, but you, you you you go into farms and right or wrong, everybody has their own method of, of managing it for internal reasons.
Matthew Rooda 00:50:15 But when do you count the guilt as in the cell farm? When do you count the coal as no longer being the cell farm? For some, it’s the moment the guilt guilt walks into the farm. She’s eating feet, she’s taking up space. And the moment that coal gets onto the truck, that’s when she’s no longer pow the sword. But in other scenarios, that guilt is not a part of the soul herd until you breed her, or that coal is no longer a part of the salad herd. Once you’ve put her in the coal pen, but then you’re not accounting for the feed in the space and all the other costs. And so if you’re if you’re messing with that in a direction, it’s not comparable.
Travis Brown 00:50:49 Yeah. PSC to me means absolutely nothing. Not at all. I put zero stock into it. And we have yet in this industry that I’ve ever seen, we have never once handed a trophy out for it. I’ve never seen somebody get up on stage at NPC. You had 38.
Travis Brown 00:51:11 See? Congratulations. I’ve never seen that. Right. and that.
Matthew Rooda 00:51:17 And people go out of business even with a really high swi.
Travis Brown 00:51:20 Yeah. And there’s four. I mean, there’s at least four different formulas to calculate it. You know, some guys do litters per year times pigs win for sale. Some guys do, and you pick on PMF y, they can do an annualized pick number over mated inventory at that given time versus 20 weeks ago. Yeah. Right. So there’s there’s good and bad to both of those formulas. there’s good and bad to to litters per year, figuring out what litters per year. It depends on what side of the equation you’re on. If I’m a if I’m a breed, the wing guy, and I don’t get to see that in product of a pig. I’m going to turn that farrowing house very fast, and we’re going to crank out the litters per year.
Matthew Rooda 00:52:04 But if you are weaning those pigs, you want to keep them in there a little longer. Get the benefit in finishing, but now your size is not going to look as good.
Travis Brown 00:52:11 Exactly. so in that regard, size like to me is the most outdated metric there is that we have.
Matthew Rooda 00:52:18 I’ve had people say, so I only want to talk to your customers that have a 33 SWI, and it’s like, well, we got somebody who’s weaning pretty old pigs because they finish them at 32 now, not 33. It’s like, oh, we’re being a little narrow, narrow minded when we’re looking at one metric.
Travis Brown 00:52:35 Yeah. and that’s the, I think, the big key. And you said it best. There’s been a there’s been a lot. There’s been some producers who have been. 3637 C 510 years ago and they’re not here. you can go broke chasing 33 to 35. How do you how do I get to 35? Sigh. You know, I I’ve even had guys approached me. Well why don’t you put in a nighttime monitor. And it’s like I have half a stillborn per farrow. Yeah. Let’s do the math. What’s the wage? What’s the benefits? You know, you start doing the math, and it’s like, I have to run a negative stillborn rate for this person to have an ROI.
Travis Brown 00:53:19 Yeah, right. so I, I think for me, yeah. Size one, I don’t really value a lot.
Matthew Rooda 00:53:27 What do you value a lot?
Travis Brown 00:53:29 there’s a couple things you can’t lie on. Farrowing rate. You can’t hide behind that one. It it is what it is. Yeah, right. I think that’s important. Guilt retention. I think that’s that’s another big one that we do not put a lot of focus on in this industry. and, and I say total borne with a caveat that you can’t be building up an imaginary bank of pigs and farrowing, because that gets done quite a bit. and then like I said earlier, pigs, pigs for sale, pigs wing for sale, counting or nurse offs of zeros.
Matthew Rooda 00:54:12 Do you even go even higher level from a cost standpoint on space or.
Travis Brown 00:54:16 Yeah. So so production KPI KPIs. That’s kind of what I look at right. And then how how we run our system is dollars generate a per farrowing crate.
Matthew Rooda 00:54:30 Gotcha. Then that’s the ultimate metric right.
Travis Brown 00:54:32 It is and going, you know, and and that’s really what matters. Even in a rising market or a good market like we we’ve had the past two years. and it also matters in a falling market. you know, a lot of people are chasing. See what happens when the market goes and you’re losing $5 a pig. Every pig you put out there just adds a $5 loss to your PNL. Yeah. Did did did you gain anything?
Matthew Rooda 00:55:05 Yeah.
Travis Brown 00:55:05 Probably not, you know. So dollars generate a periphery win create. that’s a big one. for me, in the finishing side, really? We need to finish. It’s, dollar generated per square foot. I think that one captures a lot. I’d say we need to finish. I don’t really. Average daily gain and fee conversion aren’t the most important thing. They used to be the most important thing to me. But as I’ve gotten older and really kind of honed in a little bit on more of the economics behind it, average daily gain and fee conversion is not nearly as important to me as standard deviation and CV scores on a market load.
Travis Brown 00:55:50 Bear. You can have a 2 or 3 average daily gain and a 2 or 3 fee conversion. But if your CV scores 9%, all the money you just saved on feed just went out the door because the Packer took, you know, $8,000 off the load for because you don’t know how to make pigs.
Matthew Rooda 00:56:10 Yeah. It’s like if you if you’re gonna have that bottleneck at the end. we found this with Piglet crushing. You can save all the pigs from getting crushed. But if you’re not going to do the things that follow correctly, they’re just going to die from another reason. And it’s like you’ve got these bottlenecks and you almost have to work from the end back. You need to reverse engineer it. So that way you’re not investing all the money up front just to see it lost from other reasons that you’re not optimizing.
Travis Brown 00:56:32 Well, that’s a that’s a good point. it wasn’t too very long ago I put a commentary piece on LinkedIn about fall behinds. and that’s really what drove it was that reverse engineering of the system.
Travis Brown 00:56:50 and taking a look at okay here’s, here’s and I went through and did it tagged a group, tagged a couple groups to fall behind and followed them all the way through the system from farrowing all the way out the door, to packing. And, very quickly you learned that. Yeah, I might be saving a couple more pigs, but every one of those pigs is costing me about 50 bucks. Right. So, what’s what’s better? Do I do I put a do I leave that crate empty in farrowing? And in hopes that I’m going to lose $300 on that litter because half of them are going to market as a cold pig. or do I put a good sale in that crate. Who is going to wean 12 or 14 pigs and, you know, 11 of them are going to go to a Packers, a great a market hog. Like which one is going to make the most money? Yeah, right. So in our system we went to absolutely no fall behind litters.
Matthew Rooda 00:57:46 When you’re not necessarily doing if they do end up a Colt on the Colt truck you’re not doing them any favor.
Travis Brown 00:57:51 Yeah.
Matthew Rooda 00:57:51 You’re not from an animal welfare standpoint.
Travis Brown 00:57:53 No you’re not. You’re just you’re you’re dragging it out. Yeah. and so we we went to no fall behind system. and I would say the first month that it, it went about as exactly how I planned it. The first month you tend to your farrowing crew is probably going to euthanize a few more pigs than they should. second month they get a little bit better at social care and a little bit better at piglet care. And then by month three, we turned the corner. I mean, we, we were 13 pigs weaned per sale company and we were 13.8 to a to 14, pretty steady every week. And when you go look at our you know what, we ship office our unit into one of our nurseries. When you go look at that reject rate that reject rates down a couple percentage points. when you go look at the percentage of substandard sales, that that is down to 0.5% today. You know, and and so that’s absolutely driven dollars per farrowing crate in dollars per square foot.
Travis Brown 00:58:59 And it’s we made that big push not too long ago on CV score and standard deviation. Put a bonus system in. went from about a 8.5% CV score, prior to my arrival, to now being at about 6.2 to a 6% CV score on the load on any given load. when you go look at and you start doing the math on the dollar saved on that, boy.
Matthew Rooda 00:59:27 It’s not small.
Travis Brown 00:59:28 No. It is. There’s a couple of commas. Yeah. Right. So, yeah, I think, I think there’s, there’s, there’s definitely KPIs that apply specifically to breed to wean guys. there’s KP, there’s KPIs that apply to failure to finish guys. And then there’s, there’s always a KPI that applies to, everybody. Right. And that’s where I, I lean heavy on that. How much money did I generate in that farrowing crate.
Matthew Rooda 01:00:00 So, so, to kind of wrap up this, this discussion, last question would be as an industry, we’ve been pretty focused on cost and how I think about this.
Matthew Rooda 01:00:08 I think about it a lot like Iowa football. Like we’re kind of like Kirk Ferentz in our approach. We’re safe. We’re steady. Ben don’t break cost. But at the end of the day, it’d be nice to see some offense. And, cost. Cost keeps you in business managing that. But we have hundreds of dollars per sale sitting there in genetic potential that we’re often not leveraging. How do you decide when it’s time to focus a little bit more on the offense of the animal and pulling more out of that genetic potential, versus maybe more of the cost oriented approach when it comes to production. And maybe that’s even offense with your people and not just kind of like a cost approach.
Travis Brown 01:00:49 Yeah. that’s been a huge, huge task for me in the past two years is driving cost. I think, you know, it’s it’s tricky when you when you peel back the onion and you start looking at this thing, it’s it’s you what’s, what’s going to be my ROI if I chase a given a given item, what’s going to be my ROI on it? when I, when I look at the costs and kind of like how we’re getting offensive on it, I think the just a simple mindset of when people say, this is how we’ve always done it.
Travis Brown 01:01:30 That is that is not the mindset to use. Like even today, you know, the industry is probably bulk PCI. I’m trying to figure out how to get into deep uterine. Right. I’m starting that now. I think that’s, that’s going to be the next big game changer. Right. I can cut that semen dose in half. I can run 1 billion instead of 2 billion. you look at a so I mean, you know, you’re paying eight bucks a dose for good quality commercial semen.
Matthew Rooda 01:02:04 That’s a pretty big improvement right off the bat.
Travis Brown 01:02:06 Yep. It is. And so I, I think being offensive on cost means you have to if you’re mid to senior level leadership, you’ve got to be looking at the next competitive edge.
Matthew Rooda 01:02:21 And so you’re seeing being you’re you’re almost looking at it like offensive on cost means. What are the things that are we’re leaving on the table within our people, our facilities or our genetics that we need to go capture? Because cost isn’t just how much of my spending, it’s how much am I leaving on the table.
Matthew Rooda 01:02:38 Yep. You’re you’re really factoring an opportunity cost. Yep. Which isn’t isn’t necessarily normal. No. I think a lot of people a lot of people leave opportunity cost on the doorstep.
Travis Brown 01:02:48 Well, it’s it’s we’ve had the AI discussion for. Oh, man. It seems like that’s a hot topic these days.
Matthew Rooda 01:02:55 Okay. Are you talking about that new modern AI or. Yeah. You just went from reading artificial intelligence.
Travis Brown 01:03:02 We’re not going to artificial intelligence.
Matthew Rooda 01:03:03 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Travis Brown 01:03:06 I was one of those guys a couple of years ago. I was not a big fan of it.
Matthew Rooda 01:03:11 You’re like, I’m not touching it, right?
Travis Brown 01:03:12 Yeah. I was like, there’s no way this this is going to work. Not in a big barn. I find myself more and more every day, looking at ways, Okay, how can I put AI into my system and it gives me a competitive edge? Maybe that’s AI on feed ordering. When you talk about cost, well, how much money do you spend ordering feed every week? You know, that’s a big thing we did.
Travis Brown 01:03:39 We put not a plug in for Ben Century, but we put Ben Century on a sale units. From a biosecurity standpoint and from a labor standpoint, that’s eight hours a week that my managers are not going around climbing bins or throwing a rock on the bin. We’re not bringing a truckload of feed down there. It doesn’t fit. And I got to haul it all the way back to the feed mill, right? That’s all cost. And AI is basically pulled that what was a cost to us and a real risk is pulled that off. when we look at, you know, how can we use different AI platforms to, to put data in front of your frontline technicians? in a very simplistic way. right? Not a very complicated way. I can look at numbers and pretty much figure them out, but I’m a nerd, so it works. But how do I get my lowest level employee to see the same value in a number that I see?
Matthew Rooda 01:04:39 Yeah, two weeks in and I know this matters.
Matthew Rooda 01:04:41 And this is why.
Travis Brown 01:04:42 Yep. Exactly. And I think AI is going to play a big role in that. I think it’s the industry shifts further down the road here. I think there’s a lot of ways that AI could potentially play a role in calling sales, in a manner that makes the most sense and not just are you had ten born alive. You’re out the door, right?
Matthew Rooda 01:05:09 Yeah. A bit more of a comprehensive flow management. Yeah.
Travis Brown 01:05:11 Or. Oh, you only win nine, you know, or there’s a lot of guys that will call sales based off of what they win. She may be a factory sale though when she has like a 25. Born alive?
Matthew Rooda 01:05:22 Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Travis Brown 01:05:24 She’s a big factory, right? so I think there’s a lot of ways that AI is going to help drive that. from a cell phone production metric, and from a feed mill. Side feed management. for sure. AI is getting very involved there. on the finishing side, I look for, I think for me, and this is something I’m desperately trying to figure out.
Travis Brown 01:05:53 using AI to identify and basically cut my CV score down from a 6.2% down to a four. right. there’s there’s a couple of systems out there I’ve looked at already, and I think they just need a little bit of tweaking and we’ll be there. but I anticipate when I do find one that I like, it will be implemented in our system pretty quick. if it saves, you know, if marking a load goes from 1 hour to 30 minutes, it doesn’t take very long to do the math. you make a lot of money back, right? So? So just as much as I think cost is offensive and defensive, right? I think cost also should be looked at in terms of, opportunities. You know, if I, if I can save money here and that means I have a little bit more money to play with and I can go over here with it. Right.
Matthew Rooda 01:06:51 So it’s a cost you’ve always carried, but it’s not on the balance sheet. So it’s not necessarily recognized. Yeah.
Travis Brown 01:06:59 Or it’s a cost you’ve always carried but it’s maybe not. It could be better utilized somewhere else.
Matthew Rooda 01:07:04 Fair.
Travis Brown 01:07:05 You know, we really when you, when you go and look at, like, just how we did it on a farm level with with the Ben Century sensors. that was a cost we always carried. Right? There’s been sensors. Cost me every month. We were paying that every month anyways because you got to pay a farm manager.
Matthew Rooda 01:07:23 Yep.
Travis Brown 01:07:24 but now I’ve taken that and, on a filtered sale unit. my farm manager can pull in. He can look at his phone. He can go. Yep. That gestation bin when we cut that gestation feed line on the day that Ben’s going to run empty. And that’s a biosecurity risk. So now he goes out there and just swaps that bin over real quick. So we never have a risk. We never have a break point. so I think yeah, just in terms of I don’t really I don’t necessarily have to have I don’t really have to save a bunch of money.
Travis Brown 01:08:00 I just need to better utilize it.
Matthew Rooda 01:08:02 Fair. So it’s kind of wrap things up. A couple questions for you. Is more rapid fire oriented. Okay. First one, what’s your favorite cut of pork?
Travis Brown 01:08:12 Oh, that’s a tough one.
Matthew Rooda 01:08:17 It’s.
Travis Brown 01:08:17 It’s a pork chop. well, I should back that up. It’s not really a pork chop. It’s a, It’s a it’s a cup of steak.
Matthew Rooda 01:08:27 Oh, okay. And we just had that at NPC.
Travis Brown 01:08:31 Yeah.
Matthew Rooda 01:08:32 That’s good.
Travis Brown 01:08:33 Yeah. So very simple. A little bit of I use, GSP garlic, salt, pepper and, about a quarter inch stick of butter on top of that thing and put it on the grill to about 135 degrees and pull it off and let it rest. And just you don’t even need a knife.
Matthew Rooda 01:08:52 Yeah. It’s so tender.
Travis Brown 01:08:53 Yeah. that’s probably my. If I’m grilling, it’s probably my favorite one. favorite pork dish I would tell you is, Eastern Carolina barbecue.
Matthew Rooda 01:09:03 I was gonna ask you.
Matthew Rooda 01:09:05 That’s not gonna ever change either. No, I, I you cannot convince me that a Kansas City style pulled pork is better than an Eastern Carolina. Yeah. Pulled pork? Yeah.
Travis Brown 01:09:14 Eastern Carolina pulled pork with a good old vinegar sauce on it.
Matthew Rooda 01:09:18 It’s unmatched.
Travis Brown 01:09:19 Yeah, it’s it’s it’s.
Matthew Rooda 01:09:20 There’s a narrow window though. Yeah. Like, you can’t mess it up because it goes off the rails fast. Yeah. But when you get it right, it’s not. Nothing comes close.
Travis Brown 01:09:29 It’s really good. That’s probably one of the things I miss about being out, you know, being. Being back in North Carolina was the ability to go in and and get a vinegar based sauce and it actually enjoy it instead of slathering it and.
Matthew Rooda 01:09:43 Brown sugar.
Travis Brown 01:09:44 And.
Matthew Rooda 01:09:44 And corn syrup.
Travis Brown 01:09:47 but.
Matthew Rooda 01:09:48 So one other question here is when you think about everything you’ve learned and what you can maybe share with others, what’s what’s a golden nugget, a bit of life wisdom that you’ve picked up in or out of the industry that you think others can learn from?
Travis Brown 01:10:07 Accountability starts with you.
Travis Brown 01:10:12 I think waking up every day in the mirror or looking in the mirror. Every morning when I wake up and knowing that, I am responsible for for not only me and my family, but I am responsible for 60 something employees and their families and holding myself accountable to the decisions that I made. some. And some days that’s going home and and sitting underneath the shade tree at my house and thinking back on the decisions that I made. were they the right ones? were they the wrong ones? Was there anything I could have done different? or even just even with interactions, having that same bit of reflection? but but by far. Hold yourself accountable. It works out a lot better. that’s probably the biggest thing for me is just just be honest.
