May 21, 2025 • 23 mins
Ever wondered how the chicken on your plate became so efficient to produce? The answer lies in cutting-edge genetic science happening behind the scenes at companies like Cobb-Ventress. Brandon Mulnix sits down with William Herring, Vice President of Cobb-Ventress, at the Animal Ag Tech Innovation Summit in Dallas to uncover the fascinating intersection of artificial intelligence, camera technology, and poultry genetics.
With experience spanning beef cattle, pork, and now broiler chicken genetics, Herring brings unique cross-species perspective to genetic improvement. He walks us through Cobb's three-pronged approach to innovation: developing new genetic products, implementing cutting-edge science in their ongoing breeding programs, and staying ahead of scientific breakthroughs. The conversation reveals how every bird in their breeding program receives its own "social security number" and has countless traits measured to determine which individuals will create the next generation of broilers.
The most captivating revelations come when Herring details how AI and camera technology are revolutionizing trait measurement. Traditional subjective scoring systems are being replaced with precision phenotyping that can analyze bird locomotion and even monitor mating behavior to address industry-wide hatchability challenges. We also get an inside look at Cobb's impressive "Proving Grounds" facility where they can test 40,000 breeding females simultaneously and produce 100,000 broiler eggs weekly for evaluation. Their relationship with parent company Tyson Foods allows for comprehensive meat quality assessment, creating what Herring calls a complete "playbook" for each new genetic product.
Facing a future where beef prices reach record highs and pork supplies fluctuate due to African Swine Fever, Herring predicts continued global growth for poultry. For aspiring leaders, he emphasizes building teams with individuals smarter than yourself who can execute at high levels. Listen now for a fascinating glimpse into the technology shaping our food future and the leadership principles guiding agricultural innovation.
Hosted by Brandon Mulnix - Director of Commercial Accounts - Prism Controls
The Poultry Leadership Podcast is only possible because of its sponsor, Prism Controls
Find out more about them at www.prismcontrols.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brandon Mulnix (00:26):
Welcome to the Poultry Leadership Podcast.
I'm your host, Brandon Mulnix,and I am recording today from
the Animal Ag Tech InnovationSummit in Dallas, Texas.
This is my first time actuallyrecording from an event, which
is pretty cool because todaywe're covering anything
technology as it relates to allspecies and with me today I have
(00:47):
William Herring, Vice Presidentof Cobb Ventress.
William, welcome to the show.
Good morning and thank you,(William).
William, can you introduceyourself to the audience, Sure?
William Herring (00:59):
First, good to be here.
I've been in this role at Cobbfor about two and a half years,
lead Cobb's global research anddevelopment program, which
includes all things geneticimprovement.
From a career perspective, I'vestarted off in similar kinds of
responsibilities, albeit at theuniversity level in beef cattle
genetics, then spent a bigchunk of my career in pork
(01:23):
production genetics integratedpork genetics at Smithfield
Foods, and then moved on to PICin a similar role and now
working in broilers.
So it's been fun to getexperience and learn things as
we move across the species withrespect to genetic improvement.
Brandon Mulnix (01:41):
That's quite the background.
It's becoming all more familiaras folks kind of intertwine
between the species, becausewhat you learn in one species
can help, especially atsomeplace like Cobb Sure.
William Herring (01:52):
And of course you know, the biology is
different as we move between tosome extent.
But the way we go about geneticimprovement is really
practically all the same.
And I would argue, even as welook across crops, it's very
similar.
So we can practically all thesame.
And I would argue, even as welook across crops, it's very
similar.
So we can apply all the sameprinciples to make a better
product for customers andconsumers.
Brandon Mulnix (02:13):
So, william, can you share a little bit about
Cobb Vantrus?
William Herring (02:16):
Yeah, sure, cobb Vantrus is one of really
two leading global geneticscompanies in the area of broiler
or chicken genetics.
Cobb's been around for a verylong time.
We operate in all countrieswhere there is broiler or
chicken production and chickenconsumed.
We have very strong businessacross North South America,
(02:37):
europe, middle East and Asia andour primary product is a
genetic package for maximizingprofitability for integrators
and producers that ultimately isa satisfying product for
consumers.
Brandon Mulnix (02:51):
Excellent.
Tell me about what yourchallenges are in R&D.
William Herring (02:54):
Yeah, I don't know that they're unique to Cobb
, but we focus on really threeprimary strategies.
Strategies and again they'reall centered around delivering
the best genetic product andpackage to the customer within
their region and really based onthe type of product that they
harvest, whether it's a lighterweight product or if it's a
(03:15):
heavier weight product in NorthAmerica that's more white meat
yield driven.
So we focus on three primarystrategies.
Number one and this would berelatively new to Cobb would be
what I would call new productdevelopment.
So we have spent an enormousamount of, I would say, effort
and capital to get that effortunderway and you'll be seeing
(03:36):
the fruits of that soon as weenter the market with new
products.
Secondly, a core strategy andthis should be part of any good
agricultural genetics businessis around having the best
science deployed around theongoing genetic improvement
program.
So at the very top of theproduction pyramid we have farms
(03:56):
where birds are housed that wemeasure lots of things that
don't get normally measured incommercial poultry production.
Measured in commercial poultryproduction, many times very
labor intensive.
But every bird that hatchesends up with its own unique
let's call it social securitynumber or identification, and
that bird gets tracked all theway through our system.
We measure numerous thingsdepending upon what that genetic
(04:18):
line is targeted for, and thenultimately those data are
instantaneously transferred toour quantitative sciences team
where we turn that into geneticvalues for whatever the traits
are.
All of that information getspassed back to our sites and
farms where our team membersthen use that information to
(04:38):
determine which birds make it tothe next generation.
So there's a lot wound upwithin that, what you measure,
how you measure it.
The genotyping so there's a lotwound up within that.
It's what you measure, how youmeasure it, the genotyping
strategies you might take on thegenetic prediction, statistical
methods that you may or may notuse to make the absolute best
decisions, to look into thecrystal ball of that individual
(05:01):
bird's DNA and decide who'sworthy to create that next
generation.
So that's really strategynumber two.
And then the third one islooking towards the future, and
that's not a long time horizon.
But as we go throughagricultural genetic improvement
, periodically there arebreakthroughs that happen, maybe
(05:22):
in an adjacent space, maybewithin your own space, that you
need to be prepared to takeadvantage of, and that's where
really the research portioncomes in play very much.
So I'll use maybe somehistorical examples.
If we go back to really kind ofright after 2010, 2012, 2013,.
Somewhere through there, thecost of genotyping came down
(05:46):
quite a bit.
The statistical ability to usegenotyping with pedigree and
what we were measuring, reallyaccelerated and those two things
came together and Cobb andothers across different species
were trying to be ready to usethat very quickly Cobb did.
Then there's been other thingslike CRISPR, cas9 technology
(06:07):
that provided some veryinteresting research tools.
We'll see where those go.
So we invest internally withinour own research team and also
externally with collaboratorsfrom across the world every year
to try and network with thosethat are really involved in some
of the best science so thatwe're positioned to be a part of
(06:29):
those discoveries and thendetermine if we want to bring
them back in.
So those three strategies againare around new product
development, being the best inclass and implementing the best
science, around ongoing geneticimprovement and really looking
to the future of scientificbreakthroughs, if you will, that
are important to make a betterproduct for our customers and,
ultimately, for consumers.
Brandon Mulnix (06:51):
So, when you talk about new product, new
technologies, what's thedifference between the?
What brings you to a techsummit like this?
William Herring (06:58):
You know, it's a great place to look across
species and see who a lot of theparticipants here are early
stage startup type of groups.
Some of the things they'reworking on, you know how can we
bring that back into a geneticimprovement program?
One of the areas that we remainhighly invested in and
(07:20):
beginning to deploy, I'd saymore and more, is around what I
call precision phenotyping.
I use the example of 2010, plusgoing back to that period of
time where agriculture reallystepped up its game using
genotyping.
That was a big if you plottraits, we really move traits at
(07:43):
an accelerated scale using thattechnology.
Part of that equation is how wemeasure things.
As I mentioned before, wemeasure lots of different traits
, all the way from things thatimpact morbidity and livability
to simple things like growthrate, individual feed intake,
(08:03):
different muscle yield variables, meat quality attributes, just
anything that can be geneticallycontrolled that ultimately
contributes again to a customerexperience or consumer
experience.
A number of those traits arehonestly fairly difficult to
measure, and I'll give you acouple of three examples.
(08:25):
First, just as simple as thequality of the locomotion of a
bird in this case, and I'd arguethis is the same across all
species.
Historically that's been ahuman kind of subjective scoring
system Pigs, cattle and I wouldsay poultry which has been
somewhat effective.
(08:45):
So I'm not discounting what hasbeen used, but it's clearly
human-based and subjective.
Today we have projects underwaywhere we use camera technology
to watch the bird in its naturalstate, link that to an
individual identification orthat social security number of
that bird and monitor that birdas it moves freely around within
(09:07):
the space that it's in.
So if you imagine that videofeed and all of that together,
you can observe that bird.
Through honestly, artificialintelligence algorithms.
We can take all of thatinformation and, as a first step
, we can train that back on aset of data based on those
subjective scores.
As a first step, we can do thatvery well.
(09:29):
Ultimately and this sounds abit out there, but I've seen it
now in practice we can then takethat information to a next step
and the algorithms can actuallybreak apart and segment the
quality of that locomotion intoways that the human eye really
has a challenge with.
So it's a simple trait, butthat trait itself contributes to
(09:52):
the longevity of thatindividual bird.
So that's one area and weactually have a project underway
doing that and it happens to bewith the University of Georgia
and their precision livestockand poultry group there in
Athens.
A second one is around malemating behavior.
Why is that important?
Well, for those that keep upwith metrics across the industry
(10:16):
, particularly within the US.
What we've seen across theindustry is that Hatch has
decreased year over year and isvery impactful to, ultimately,
the supply-demand picture, andthere's a couple of major US
integrators that are publiclytraded and it gets mentioned in
almost every quarterly earningscall.
(10:38):
So it's all real.
Usda data verifies this.
I'd encourage you to look it up.
So it's real and it has animpact.
Why is that?
Well, a lot of what we selectfor is really driven around.
Very efficient broilerproduction on the live side
Makes perfect sense.
I think an unintendedconsequence of that is negative
(11:00):
impact on reproduction ability,and part of that is too.
We really don't have a greatway to accurately measure that
at the individual male level,and that's again where this type
of technology can come intoplace.
We have a project in the latterstages with the University of
Tennessee Precision AgriculturalGroup there in Knoxville where
(11:23):
we are doing that again, usingvideo feeds to monitor mating
behavior and the quantity ofthat mating behavior and the
quality of that behavior.
So that would be a technologythat we think would help assist
in mitigating some of thosethings.
Downstream.
It would be not a technology wewould necessarily implement
(11:44):
very far downstream in terms ofdeploying it, but certainly at
our pedigree farms we use a lotof CT imaging technology within
all of our pedigree sites toassess a number of things that
we use today like yield, muscleyield, bone and joint health.
But there are other areas likecardiovascular health that today
(12:05):
we're using those same types ofalgorithms to deploy as part of
our genetic selection andmonitoring program.
It's a project that we took onwith Georgia Tech, with the
Georgia Tech Research Institute.
So kind of going back to thatthird strategy, really the
second third strategy ofaccurately measuring things and
(12:25):
then partnering with the rightfolks to take us down that
pathway.
Brandon Mulnix (12:29):
It's so unique.
I'm so used to layer and allthe challenges within layers,
but to hear what your challengesare in the broiler world and
understanding that it's excitingthat there's a lot of progress.
I think of the computing powerand the genetics and it would
took a lot of computing power toget that genome mapped and
figured out and you know therewas a lot of work around that
just on the human side, letalone that transferred over to
(12:52):
the other species, which ispretty cool.
When it comes to Cobb's visionfor innovation, you guys do
these prototype farms or thesetest farms that get to try out
different technologies.
Can you explain that a little?
William Herring (13:04):
bit.
Yeah, we do.
We've shared it in the media.
Over the last, I would say,year and a half we invested
quite a bit of capital into asite and it's on the east coast
of the US.
We call it Proving Grounds andit really folds into our first
strategy around new productdevelopment.
Just from a Cobb perspective,probably the last really
(13:25):
successful introduction in a bigway of a product was in the
mid-80s for Cobb, the Cobb 500,which is a great small bird
package or a lighter weightpackage in the US today.
So why has new productintroduction been more limited?
I would argue there hasn't beena really good infrastructure to
(13:46):
test and validate products in ascalable way where customers
can get really confident in thedata that they want to look at
ahead of time of utilizing andputting the product down.
So we took one of our existingsites Again, it's in the
Delmarva region on the EastCoast invested constructing a
(14:06):
number of new barns,retrofitting a number of new
barns and basically I'd call ita small production pyramid where
it has great-grandparents,grandparent production, then
ultimately a fairly significantnumber of parent stock as you go
through this.
For example, if we want to testa new female product, we can
test about 40,000 females at atime, twice a year through this
(14:29):
new facility, and half of thatproduct may be dedicated to a
test female and the other halfto a female we know a lot about
to serve as a baseline or itcould be a male, just depends on
where we're at in our newproduct development timeline.
So we get a huge amount, morethan ever before in the industry
breeder data first and foremostfor us to get confident in and,
(14:52):
if it looks like a product thatis street-worthy, data that we
can share with customers aheadof time.
Also, it generates a largenumber of broiler eggs.
So customers always want toknow about the broiler data.
A lot of that they can generatethemselves if we can provide
them with a test population ofbroilers to place.
So we can generate about100,000 broiler eggs per week
(15:16):
for customers to utilize andhave a look at.
It goes further than that.
We have our own broiler testingfacilities that we pass a
portion of those to, so we growthe broilers out, test them for
all the important traits ofgrowth rate, livability, feed
conversion, and then we have aprocessing facility in
Fayetteville, arkansas it'sactually the University of
Arkansas's processing facility,so we can harvest a sizable
(15:40):
number of birds.
We share that every day withthem and we're harvesting birds
in there every day.
Where we can hand debone, it'sdigital data collection platform
so we can quickly get the databack into our database to assess
that.
And then also something that isvery unique, I think, to Cobb
and something we have takenadvantage of in a very sizable
(16:04):
way over the last year and ahalf Cobb is owned wholly owned
by Tyson Foods.
So you know our genetics do goto Tyson, but Tyson has some
other assets that we have reallytapped into that have helped us
for our global geneticimprovement program, and one of
those is a better understandingand characterization of all
(16:25):
things around meat quality.
So when we harvest those birdsthat come through the processing
facility, we send a portion ofthose samples over to the Tyson
Discovery Center and the foodscience team there does a very
thorough evaluation of thetreatments that we provide and
then that information getspassed back.
(16:45):
That's really a uniqueopportunity for us is being
owned by an integrator withthose sorts of abilities.
So all of that informationbundled up together gives us a
really good look, is a productthat we want to go to, that we
think we want to go to marketwith?
Does it pass all of our testsfirst before we want to go to a
customer?
Brandon Mulnix (17:05):
with it.
It's interesting because as youdevelop product, you have the
facilities and the capacity torun that product all the way
through its life cycle and learn, not rely on a grower to grow
that product for you to get youthe data that you guys want as a
company that's important to youto make your decisions on.
That's putting a lot of controlto the uncontrollable in the
(17:27):
R&D space.
William Herring (17:28):
Yeah, it is.
There's another thing that'sreally important to that as
we're getting ready to enterwith newer and different
products, we also want to beable to show up with a playbook
of how to use that product downthrough the system.
So, whether it be what's theright weight guide for the
females or males, you know whatis there?
(17:50):
A lighting guide that'sslightly different, or an
incubation profile, or that typeof facility allows us to have a
better understanding of thatand show up with with a playbook
for, you know, a moresuccessful experience that's got
to be very helpful for yourgrowers, as they have that curve
to go off from and thebaselines.
Brandon Mulnix (18:11):
That way they're not necessarily looking at.
Maybe what other people aredoing in the industry that are
not as vested as Cobb is in thesuccess of that bird.
So at least it gives them avery, very good goal to shoot
for.
William Herring (18:25):
That's our hope , that's our goal for that
process.
So we've talked about birds.
Brandon Mulnix (18:29):
We've talked about Cobb.
Let's talk about William just alittle bit.
This is a podcast aboutleadership, and you're in a
position of leadership as a VP.
I'm assuming you have a prettygood team around you.
What is some traits of a goodleader?
William Herring (18:45):
Well, first I'm going to say I don't think
there is a silver bullet forthat.
Hey look, we're all differentas individuals.
We all have things wherecertain areas we're better at
than others.
For me and again, this is justfor me but throughout my career,
the thing that has helped meand the things I've been tasked
(19:09):
with is being sure that my team,especially my direct team I try
and recruit people that are waysmarter than me, that work hard
and can execute at a very highlevel.
That sounds very simple, butthe most important thing that
(19:30):
I'm involved with is hiring andrecruiting, and so it's
something that I spend a lot oftime on down through the
organization, not only whenthere are opportunities for like
my direct reports.
Conversely, if you don't and youknow, let's say, you're a good
and smart leader there aren'tenough hours in the day to go
(19:54):
down through the weeds and thedetails, to go behind people and
be sure things are getting done.
So at Cobb, for example, weclearly have a lot going on and
we have to deliver on thosethings that we have going on,
and so I have spent, certainlyearly on in coming into the role
of assembling the right groupfrom across agricultural
(20:16):
genetics that can perform atthat level and do those things.
And I don't think it matterswhether you're leading an R&D
organization or the entirety ofa business or if you're a
production manager workingacross several sites and
depending on people to getthings done.
For me that's been verycritical.
(20:37):
There's a lot of other thingsthat are important, I suppose,
but for me, to execute andcreate change in a business,
that's been, throughout mycareer, the most important.
Brandon Mulnix (20:50):
As we wrap this up, because there's a lot going
on today, what's one last thingthat you can share with the
future leaders of this industry?
William Herring (20:57):
It's going to be an exciting time and I'm
going to say this from alivestock and poultry
perspective in general Globally,as we look across some
uncharted waters, across thespecies.
We're here in Dallas, texas.
A lot of the conference hasprobably a little heavier on the
beef side, which you knowwell-deserved and it's always
(21:20):
interesting to track.
Beef in the US is livingthrough a really interesting
time of incredibly low cowinventory and, I'd argue, not
super strong signals that that'sgoing to increase All-time high
multiples of live prices, whichyou know if you're making
calves on the front side, that'sa great deal.
(21:40):
My point is is that ultimatelydownstream that's created a
increased cost to the consumer,which is all fine and good, but
it changes the dynamics acrossthe protein consumption space.
I think it ultimately means onfor chicken that there'll be
(22:01):
continued growth and expansionglobally to maybe offset some of
that.
I mean chicken's gonna beproduced at a lower cost as a
unit of production relative tobeef.
You've got pork somewhere inbetween.
That's still dealing with thesupply, demand off balances with
ASF and other dynamics.
(22:21):
So how that future looksexactly is, I think, really
unclear, but it is going to bean interesting time, I do think,
when it comes to poultryproduction, there'll be
continued growth and expansionacross the world incrementally,
and it'll be a great and funindustry to work in.
Well, william.
Brandon Mulnix (22:41):
I really appreciate your time Listeners.
Most of the time we spendtalking about eggs and egg
production and other things, butyou've got to remember the
barnyard's got lots of differentspecies.
When we're talking agriculture,we're talking ag tech.
It's exciting to see folkscoming together and trying to
solve problems, trying to helpfarmers, because there is so
(23:04):
many different types oftechnologies, from drone
technology to, I mean, there'sall kinds of different ones here
that are kind of exciting.
Never realized I'd see a GPScollar on a cow, but it makes
sense when you start to look atthings.
So, poultry listeners, thankyou.
Please share this podcast withyour friends, family and the
rest of the industry.
Have a great day.
Welcome to the Poultry Leadership Podcast.
I'm your host, Brandon Mulnix,and I am recording today from
the Animal Ag Tech InnovationSummit in Dallas, Texas.
This is my first time actuallyrecording from an event, which
is pretty cool because todaywe're covering anything
technology as it relates to allspecies and with me today I have
(00:47):
William Herring, Vice Presidentof Cobb Ventress.
William, welcome to the show.
Good morning and thank you,(William).
William, can you introduceyourself to the audience, Sure?
William Herring (00:59):
First, good to be here.
I've been in this role at Cobbfor about two and a half years,
lead Cobb's global research anddevelopment program, which
includes all things geneticimprovement.
From a career perspective, I'vestarted off in similar kinds of
responsibilities, albeit at theuniversity level in beef cattle
genetics, then spent a bigchunk of my career in pork
(01:23):
production genetics integratedpork genetics at Smithfield
Foods, and then moved on to PICin a similar role and now
working in broilers.
So it's been fun to getexperience and learn things as
we move across the species withrespect to genetic improvement.
Brandon Mulnix (01:41):
That's quite the background.
It's becoming all more familiaras folks kind of intertwine
between the species, becausewhat you learn in one species
can help, especially atsomeplace like Cobb Sure.
William Herring (01:52):
And of course you know, the biology is
different as we move between tosome extent.
But the way we go about geneticimprovement is really
practically all the same.
And I would argue, even as welook across crops, it's very
similar.
So we can practically all thesame.
And I would argue, even as welook across crops, it's very
similar.
So we can apply all the sameprinciples to make a better
product for customers andconsumers.
Brandon Mulnix (02:13):
So, william, can you share a little bit about
Cobb Vantrus?
William Herring (02:16):
Yeah, sure, cobb Vantrus is one of really
two leading global geneticscompanies in the area of broiler
or chicken genetics.
Cobb's been around for a verylong time.
We operate in all countrieswhere there is broiler or
chicken production and chickenconsumed.
We have very strong businessacross North South America,
(02:37):
europe, middle East and Asia andour primary product is a
genetic package for maximizingprofitability for integrators
and producers that ultimately isa satisfying product for
consumers.
Brandon Mulnix (02:51):
Excellent.
Tell me about what yourchallenges are in R&D.
William Herring (02:54):
Yeah, I don't know that they're unique to Cobb
, but we focus on really threeprimary strategies.
Strategies and again they'reall centered around delivering
the best genetic product andpackage to the customer within
their region and really based onthe type of product that they
harvest, whether it's a lighterweight product or if it's a
(03:15):
heavier weight product in NorthAmerica that's more white meat
yield driven.
So we focus on three primarystrategies.
Number one and this would berelatively new to Cobb would be
what I would call new productdevelopment.
So we have spent an enormousamount of, I would say, effort
and capital to get that effortunderway and you'll be seeing
(03:36):
the fruits of that soon as weenter the market with new
products.
Secondly, a core strategy andthis should be part of any good
agricultural genetics businessis around having the best
science deployed around theongoing genetic improvement
program.
So at the very top of theproduction pyramid we have farms
(03:56):
where birds are housed that wemeasure lots of things that
don't get normally measured incommercial poultry production.
Measured in commercial poultryproduction, many times very
labor intensive.
But every bird that hatchesends up with its own unique
let's call it social securitynumber or identification, and
that bird gets tracked all theway through our system.
We measure numerous thingsdepending upon what that genetic
(04:18):
line is targeted for, and thenultimately those data are
instantaneously transferred toour quantitative sciences team
where we turn that into geneticvalues for whatever the traits
are.
All of that information getspassed back to our sites and
farms where our team membersthen use that information to
(04:38):
determine which birds make it tothe next generation.
So there's a lot wound upwithin that, what you measure,
how you measure it.
The genotyping so there's a lotwound up within that.
It's what you measure, how youmeasure it, the genotyping
strategies you might take on thegenetic prediction, statistical
methods that you may or may notuse to make the absolute best
decisions, to look into thecrystal ball of that individual
(05:01):
bird's DNA and decide who'sworthy to create that next
generation.
So that's really strategynumber two.
And then the third one islooking towards the future, and
that's not a long time horizon.
But as we go throughagricultural genetic improvement
, periodically there arebreakthroughs that happen, maybe
(05:22):
in an adjacent space, maybewithin your own space, that you
need to be prepared to takeadvantage of, and that's where
really the research portioncomes in play very much.
So I'll use maybe somehistorical examples.
If we go back to really kind ofright after 2010, 2012, 2013,.
Somewhere through there, thecost of genotyping came down
(05:46):
quite a bit.
The statistical ability to usegenotyping with pedigree and
what we were measuring, reallyaccelerated and those two things
came together and Cobb andothers across different species
were trying to be ready to usethat very quickly Cobb did.
Then there's been other thingslike CRISPR, cas9 technology
(06:07):
that provided some veryinteresting research tools.
We'll see where those go.
So we invest internally withinour own research team and also
externally with collaboratorsfrom across the world every year
to try and network with thosethat are really involved in some
of the best science so thatwe're positioned to be a part of
(06:29):
those discoveries and thendetermine if we want to bring
them back in.
So those three strategies againare around new product
development, being the best inclass and implementing the best
science, around ongoing geneticimprovement and really looking
to the future of scientificbreakthroughs, if you will, that
are important to make a betterproduct for our customers and,
ultimately, for consumers.
Brandon Mulnix (06:51):
So, when you talk about new product, new
technologies, what's thedifference between the?
What brings you to a techsummit like this?
William Herring (06:58):
You know, it's a great place to look across
species and see who a lot of theparticipants here are early
stage startup type of groups.
Some of the things they'reworking on, you know how can we
bring that back into a geneticimprovement program?
One of the areas that we remainhighly invested in and
(07:20):
beginning to deploy, I'd saymore and more, is around what I
call precision phenotyping.
I use the example of 2010, plusgoing back to that period of
time where agriculture reallystepped up its game using
genotyping.
That was a big if you plottraits, we really move traits at
(07:43):
an accelerated scale using thattechnology.
Part of that equation is how wemeasure things.
As I mentioned before, wemeasure lots of different traits
, all the way from things thatimpact morbidity and livability
to simple things like growthrate, individual feed intake,
(08:03):
different muscle yield variables, meat quality attributes, just
anything that can be geneticallycontrolled that ultimately
contributes again to a customerexperience or consumer
experience.
A number of those traits arehonestly fairly difficult to
measure, and I'll give you acouple of three examples.
(08:25):
First, just as simple as thequality of the locomotion of a
bird in this case, and I'd arguethis is the same across all
species.
Historically that's been ahuman kind of subjective scoring
system Pigs, cattle and I wouldsay poultry which has been
somewhat effective.
(08:45):
So I'm not discounting what hasbeen used, but it's clearly
human-based and subjective.
Today we have projects underwaywhere we use camera technology
to watch the bird in its naturalstate, link that to an
individual identification orthat social security number of
that bird and monitor that birdas it moves freely around within
(09:07):
the space that it's in.
So if you imagine that videofeed and all of that together,
you can observe that bird.
Through honestly, artificialintelligence algorithms.
We can take all of thatinformation and, as a first step
, we can train that back on aset of data based on those
subjective scores.
As a first step, we can do thatvery well.
(09:29):
Ultimately and this sounds abit out there, but I've seen it
now in practice we can then takethat information to a next step
and the algorithms can actuallybreak apart and segment the
quality of that locomotion intoways that the human eye really
has a challenge with.
So it's a simple trait, butthat trait itself contributes to
(09:52):
the longevity of thatindividual bird.
So that's one area and weactually have a project underway
doing that and it happens to bewith the University of Georgia
and their precision livestockand poultry group there in
Athens.
A second one is around malemating behavior.
Why is that important?
Well, for those that keep upwith metrics across the industry
(10:16):
, particularly within the US.
What we've seen across theindustry is that Hatch has
decreased year over year and isvery impactful to, ultimately,
the supply-demand picture, andthere's a couple of major US
integrators that are publiclytraded and it gets mentioned in
almost every quarterly earningscall.
(10:38):
So it's all real.
Usda data verifies this.
I'd encourage you to look it up.
So it's real and it has animpact.
Why is that?
Well, a lot of what we selectfor is really driven around.
Very efficient broilerproduction on the live side
Makes perfect sense.
I think an unintendedconsequence of that is negative
(11:00):
impact on reproduction ability,and part of that is too.
We really don't have a greatway to accurately measure that
at the individual male level,and that's again where this type
of technology can come intoplace.
We have a project in the latterstages with the University of
Tennessee Precision AgriculturalGroup there in Knoxville where
(11:23):
we are doing that again, usingvideo feeds to monitor mating
behavior and the quantity ofthat mating behavior and the
quality of that behavior.
So that would be a technologythat we think would help assist
in mitigating some of thosethings.
Downstream.
It would be not a technology wewould necessarily implement
(11:44):
very far downstream in terms ofdeploying it, but certainly at
our pedigree farms we use a lotof CT imaging technology within
all of our pedigree sites toassess a number of things that
we use today like yield, muscleyield, bone and joint health.
But there are other areas likecardiovascular health that today
(12:05):
we're using those same types ofalgorithms to deploy as part of
our genetic selection andmonitoring program.
It's a project that we took onwith Georgia Tech, with the
Georgia Tech Research Institute.
So kind of going back to thatthird strategy, really the
second third strategy ofaccurately measuring things and
(12:25):
then partnering with the rightfolks to take us down that
pathway.
Brandon Mulnix (12:29):
It's so unique.
I'm so used to layer and allthe challenges within layers,
but to hear what your challengesare in the broiler world and
understanding that it's excitingthat there's a lot of progress.
I think of the computing powerand the genetics and it would
took a lot of computing power toget that genome mapped and
figured out and you know therewas a lot of work around that
just on the human side, letalone that transferred over to
(12:52):
the other species, which ispretty cool.
When it comes to Cobb's visionfor innovation, you guys do
these prototype farms or thesetest farms that get to try out
different technologies.
Can you explain that a little?
William Herring (13:04):
bit.
Yeah, we do.
We've shared it in the media.
Over the last, I would say,year and a half we invested
quite a bit of capital into asite and it's on the east coast
of the US.
We call it Proving Grounds andit really folds into our first
strategy around new productdevelopment.
Just from a Cobb perspective,probably the last really
(13:25):
successful introduction in a bigway of a product was in the
mid-80s for Cobb, the Cobb 500,which is a great small bird
package or a lighter weightpackage in the US today.
So why has new productintroduction been more limited?
I would argue there hasn't beena really good infrastructure to
(13:46):
test and validate products in ascalable way where customers
can get really confident in thedata that they want to look at
ahead of time of utilizing andputting the product down.
So we took one of our existingsites Again, it's in the
Delmarva region on the EastCoast invested constructing a
(14:06):
number of new barns,retrofitting a number of new
barns and basically I'd call ita small production pyramid where
it has great-grandparents,grandparent production, then
ultimately a fairly significantnumber of parent stock as you go
through this.
For example, if we want to testa new female product, we can
test about 40,000 females at atime, twice a year through this
(14:29):
new facility, and half of thatproduct may be dedicated to a
test female and the other halfto a female we know a lot about
to serve as a baseline or itcould be a male, just depends on
where we're at in our newproduct development timeline.
So we get a huge amount, morethan ever before in the industry
breeder data first and foremostfor us to get confident in and,
(14:52):
if it looks like a product thatis street-worthy, data that we
can share with customers aheadof time.
Also, it generates a largenumber of broiler eggs.
So customers always want toknow about the broiler data.
A lot of that they can generatethemselves if we can provide
them with a test population ofbroilers to place.
So we can generate about100,000 broiler eggs per week
(15:16):
for customers to utilize andhave a look at.
It goes further than that.
We have our own broiler testingfacilities that we pass a
portion of those to, so we growthe broilers out, test them for
all the important traits ofgrowth rate, livability, feed
conversion, and then we have aprocessing facility in
Fayetteville, arkansas it'sactually the University of
Arkansas's processing facility,so we can harvest a sizable
(15:40):
number of birds.
We share that every day withthem and we're harvesting birds
in there every day.
Where we can hand debone, it'sdigital data collection platform
so we can quickly get the databack into our database to assess
that.
And then also something that isvery unique, I think, to Cobb
and something we have takenadvantage of in a very sizable
(16:04):
way over the last year and ahalf Cobb is owned wholly owned
by Tyson Foods.
So you know our genetics do goto Tyson, but Tyson has some
other assets that we have reallytapped into that have helped us
for our global geneticimprovement program, and one of
those is a better understandingand characterization of all
(16:25):
things around meat quality.
So when we harvest those birdsthat come through the processing
facility, we send a portion ofthose samples over to the Tyson
Discovery Center and the foodscience team there does a very
thorough evaluation of thetreatments that we provide and
then that information getspassed back.
(16:45):
That's really a uniqueopportunity for us is being
owned by an integrator withthose sorts of abilities.
So all of that informationbundled up together gives us a
really good look, is a productthat we want to go to, that we
think we want to go to marketwith?
Does it pass all of our testsfirst before we want to go to a
customer?
Brandon Mulnix (17:05):
with it.
It's interesting because as youdevelop product, you have the
facilities and the capacity torun that product all the way
through its life cycle and learn, not rely on a grower to grow
that product for you to get youthe data that you guys want as a
company that's important to youto make your decisions on.
That's putting a lot of controlto the uncontrollable in the
(17:27):
R&D space.
William Herring (17:28):
Yeah, it is.
There's another thing that'sreally important to that as
we're getting ready to enterwith newer and different
products, we also want to beable to show up with a playbook
of how to use that product downthrough the system.
So, whether it be what's theright weight guide for the
females or males, you know whatis there?
(17:50):
A lighting guide that'sslightly different, or an
incubation profile, or that typeof facility allows us to have a
better understanding of thatand show up with with a playbook
for, you know, a moresuccessful experience that's got
to be very helpful for yourgrowers, as they have that curve
to go off from and thebaselines.
Brandon Mulnix (18:11):
That way they're not necessarily looking at.
Maybe what other people aredoing in the industry that are
not as vested as Cobb is in thesuccess of that bird.
So at least it gives them avery, very good goal to shoot
for.
William Herring (18:25):
That's our hope , that's our goal for that
process.
So we've talked about birds.
Brandon Mulnix (18:29):
We've talked about Cobb.
Let's talk about William just alittle bit.
This is a podcast aboutleadership, and you're in a
position of leadership as a VP.
I'm assuming you have a prettygood team around you.
What is some traits of a goodleader?
William Herring (18:45):
Well, first I'm going to say I don't think
there is a silver bullet forthat.
Hey look, we're all differentas individuals.
We all have things wherecertain areas we're better at
than others.
For me and again, this is justfor me but throughout my career,
the thing that has helped meand the things I've been tasked
(19:09):
with is being sure that my team,especially my direct team I try
and recruit people that are waysmarter than me, that work hard
and can execute at a very highlevel.
That sounds very simple, butthe most important thing that
(19:30):
I'm involved with is hiring andrecruiting, and so it's
something that I spend a lot oftime on down through the
organization, not only whenthere are opportunities for like
my direct reports.
Conversely, if you don't and youknow, let's say, you're a good
and smart leader there aren'tenough hours in the day to go
(19:54):
down through the weeds and thedetails, to go behind people and
be sure things are getting done.
So at Cobb, for example, weclearly have a lot going on and
we have to deliver on thosethings that we have going on,
and so I have spent, certainlyearly on in coming into the role
of assembling the right groupfrom across agricultural
(20:16):
genetics that can perform atthat level and do those things.
And I don't think it matterswhether you're leading an R&D
organization or the entirety ofa business or if you're a
production manager workingacross several sites and
depending on people to getthings done.
For me that's been verycritical.
(20:37):
There's a lot of other thingsthat are important, I suppose,
but for me, to execute andcreate change in a business,
that's been, throughout mycareer, the most important.
Brandon Mulnix (20:50):
As we wrap this up, because there's a lot going
on today, what's one last thingthat you can share with the
future leaders of this industry?
William Herring (20:57):
It's going to be an exciting time and I'm
going to say this from alivestock and poultry
perspective in general Globally,as we look across some
uncharted waters, across thespecies.
We're here in Dallas, texas.
A lot of the conference hasprobably a little heavier on the
beef side, which you knowwell-deserved and it's always
(21:20):
interesting to track.
Beef in the US is livingthrough a really interesting
time of incredibly low cowinventory and, I'd argue, not
super strong signals that that'sgoing to increase All-time high
multiples of live prices, whichyou know if you're making
calves on the front side, that'sa great deal.
(21:40):
My point is is that ultimatelydownstream that's created a
increased cost to the consumer,which is all fine and good, but
it changes the dynamics acrossthe protein consumption space.
I think it ultimately means onfor chicken that there'll be
(22:01):
continued growth and expansionglobally to maybe offset some of
that.
I mean chicken's gonna beproduced at a lower cost as a
unit of production relative tobeef.
You've got pork somewhere inbetween.
That's still dealing with thesupply, demand off balances with
ASF and other dynamics.
(22:21):
So how that future looksexactly is, I think, really
unclear, but it is going to bean interesting time, I do think,
when it comes to poultryproduction, there'll be
continued growth and expansionacross the world incrementally,
and it'll be a great and funindustry to work in.
Well, william.
Brandon Mulnix (22:41):
I really appreciate your time Listeners.
Most of the time we spendtalking about eggs and egg
production and other things, butyou've got to remember the
barnyard's got lots of differentspecies.
When we're talking agriculture,we're talking ag tech.
It's exciting to see folkscoming together and trying to
solve problems, trying to helpfarmers, because there is so
(23:04):
many different types oftechnologies, from drone
technology to, I mean, there'sall kinds of different ones here
that are kind of exciting.
Never realized I'd see a GPScollar on a cow, but it makes
sense when you start to look atthings.
So, poultry listeners, thankyou.
Please share this podcast withyour friends, family and the
rest of the industry.
Have a great day.
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