MEAT+POULTRY - March 2015 - 65

controlled conveyor belts and sorting systems
- and designed to eliminate the need for
human labor. Monfort also introduced boxed
beef, a cost-saving innovation that other
mavericks quickly adopted.
In contrast, the aging plants of Big
Meat - Swift, Armour, Wilson and a few
others - stood as wheezing, creaky temples of
inefficiency. Their operating systems were a
morass of arcane rules and job descriptions,
the results of a century of micro-managerial
compromises between unions and
management. Indeed, Big Meat's management
was mired in the past, still scratching its head
over new-fangled consumers who wanted
frozen foods and self-serve meat departments.
The old giants were no match for the decade's
tumult. One by one, the old guard faltered and
fell, typically into the hands of new corporate
overlords who knew nothing about making
meat and whose ineptitude provided the
mavericks with more opportunities to divide
and conquer.
Life was no better down on the farm.
Soaring grain prices and consumer fury
translated into culled herds and farmers
abandoning hogs for corn. But those were
surface scratches. In the 1970s, livestock
producers were still adjusting to the
revolution that had transformed agriculture
during and after World War II. Livestock
"confinement," for example, was adopted in
the 1940s as a way for farmers to cope with
labor shortages. In the 1950s and 1960s, cattle
and hog producers grappled with the demands
of global diplomacy and new agricultural
"subsidy" programs; soaring land prices (as
suburban growth and highways gobbled rural
acres) and ongoing labor shortages.
In those post-war years, survival

necessitated creativity. By the 1970s, the
biggest and most-profitable livestock
producers were operating space-age-worthy
facilities and relied on a host of bio- and other
technologies to breed, birth and feed cattle
and hogs. Those innovators not only survived
the pain of the 70s; they thrived. Their
success, however, forced less-innovative
livestock producers to make hard choices:
Keep up with the leading-edge operation run
by Farmer Jones down the road? Or sell him
the farm and move to town?

THE BROILER BUSINESS
And then there was the chicken, the feisty
newcomer whose competitive brawn
flummoxed even the savviest meatpackers
and livestock producers. The nation's
broiler industry was born during the Great
Depression and forced to grow up fast
during World War II. Indeed, the youthful
industry experienced more technological and
organizational turmoil in its first 20 years
than its four-legged counterparts had in a
century. The woes of the 70s? A mere blip to
opportunistic survivors like Don Tyson, who
were battle-hardened and ready for action.
First stop: The starving millions abroad.
Broiler producers signed contracts to ship
billions of pounds of frozen poultry (cheaper
than beef or pork) around the world. The
move earned profit, of course, and tutored
broiler producers in the who and how of
food-based diplomacy and global markets.
Next up? The burger business. Fast-food
chains like McDonald's had been built on
beef, but as meat prices soared in the 1970s,
chicken elbowed its way on to the menu. The
grocery chains? Pushovers: Shoppers begged
for poultry products as low-price substitutes

The aging
plants of Big
Meat - Swift,
Armour,
Wilson and
a few others
- stood as
wheezing,
creaky temples
of inefficiency.

Western Meat Industry, April 1971

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